Let the Last Tear Fall
by CallMeClandestine
Summary: AU. In a world inhabited by monsters - Drones - he is her only hope. But as Tenten's world unravels and she must face her cruel fate, she knows that her pain is his fault. A NejiTen that is not love at first sight.
1. Questions

**A/N:** Chapters 1-8 are now edited! Chaps 1-3 are pretty much rewritten, 4-6 are heavily edited, and 7-8 didn't have much wrong with them. (It's obvious i started this a while ago, since the beginning used to suck majorly. I cringed so much fixing the suckage of it...) Also, this story used to be called **She Who Didn't Know**, but the title's been changed to something that is actually kinda relevent. And yes, its an AU.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto. What a surprise.

* * *

**Let the Last Tear Fall**

_1. Questions_

"Thank you, have a nice day."

Tenten gave the clerk a tired smile and grabbed the two plastic bags he was holding out to her. Frankly, she hadn't been having a very nice day, and now that the sun was beginning to set, her nerves were getting jumpy. She knew that she didn't really have anything to worry about; she had moved away from the big city so that she wouldn't _have_ to worry. But still, night was coming and she couldn't shake the feeling that she should be inside before the moon replaced the sun in the sky.

It was just an acquired habit, one she knew she would have to get over someday. _They_ only roamed large cities, after all. Or so one was told. She was safe here in Aelia. She had been safe for about a week now. And yet, old fears stuck to her like a second pair of clothes.

Lost in her thoughts and with her eyes on the ground, Tenten paid no attention to the tall figure that was peering inside the glass display window of a small shop a few buildings down. She had just decided that she would make spaghetti for dinner, when she ran head-on into the young man and fell backwards.

"Excuse you, watch where you're going," came the annoyed voice from above, and Tenten looked up from her position on the ground. The man was staring down at her with pale eyes that were narrowed in distaste, a frown on his face. His long brown hair was tied into a loose ponytail, and he was wearing a rather fancy white collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up to just below his elbows. He had an air of superiority surrounding him, and an appearance that seemed out of place in the small town.

Tenten muttered a forced, "Sorry about that, guess I should have watched where I was going," though the words came out much less than sincere, due to the look he was giving her.

"What a concept," the man said, and Tenten narrowed her eyes slightly into a glare. Who did he think he was to speak to her with that tone of voice? Nevertheless, he held out a hand, which she took with reluctance, and allowed herself to be pulled off the ground.

The smallest hint of an amused grin twisted his lips as Tenten dusted herself off. and picked the plastic bags up off the ground before turning on her heel and walking right past him.

"You're welcome," he said dryly as she passed.

"Thank you," Tenten said through clenched teeth, though her tone held nothing but animosity and a strong desire to be back in her small apartment where she could just sit back and relax for the first time that day, without the presence of egotistical jerks to fray her temper even more.

She didn't even wait for a response as she continued walking. She knew she was being rude, and she knew that she probably wouldn't have acted this way if she was having a better day, but her day had _not_ been better, and she didn't feel like dealing with annoying people at the moment.

She was a little unnerved to feel the man's eyes on her back as she walked away.

* * *

Neji watched the brunette until she turned a corner, and once she was out of sight he rubbed his forehead, his smirk dropping into a confused frown. It hadn't been strong, the prickling in his forehead, but it was unmistakably warning him of one of _them._

The uncomfortable needle-like feeling receded slowly once the girl was gone.

_Could it be coming from her? Impossible…_ He argued with himself, but he couldn't deny the possibility. She definitely had a certain presence; it could mean…

But then again, it could just mean nothing.

"How interesting," he said muttered quietly, and lowered his hands into his pockets.

* * *

Tenten let out a sigh of relief once she had closed her apartment door behind her. She deposited her grocery bags in the kitchen and pulled out a new bottle of stain remover. She grabbed a rag from the oven handle and headed into the living room.

She glowered down at the large brown coffee stain in the middle of the carpet - which had only marked the beginning of the downward spiral her day had ended up as – contemplating the defilement.

"I am so _not_ in the mood for this," Tenten growled, dropping the bottle and rag, abandoning the stain and instead walked over to the thermostat mounted on the plain white wall. She turned the dial to seventy-five degrees.

Nothing happened. She waited a minute, but the low rumbling of the heater turning on never came.

"Oh come _on_!"Tenten rubbed her palms over her eyes wearily, letting out a weak groan. "This is definitely not my day…" She trudged back into the kitchen, deciding that the heat from the stove would warm up the room enough while she cooked dinner. She opened the cupboard above the stove and pulled out a pack of spaghetti. Next she dug out the parsley, tomato, and onion from one of the grocery bags, and laid them on the cutting board. She took a knife out of a drawer and placed it next to the cutting board. Everything was there except…

"Tomato sauce." She said the word like it was a threat, like she was warning the bottle that if it didn't appear right then, she would deal it a great load of pain. When she found it.

She slammed the refrigerator door with unnecessary force, having been unsurprised to find it nearly empty when she peered inside.

Tenten jumped when she heard a metallic clanging behind her, and turned to see that the knife had fallen onto the floor, its tip pointing at her threateningly from a few feet away. She furrowed her eyebrows in question, then picked up the knife and placed it back on the cutting board while sparing a glance out the kitchen window.

Dusk was just beginning to fall; if she hurried she would be able to make it to the store and back before night had spread completely. Tenten grumbled and grabbed a coat from the hanger on the front door, and opened the door with more force than necessary, trying to rid herself of her frustration.

* * *

The sky was a dark, dusty purple when she returned gladly to the yellow lighting of the apartment complex's halls. Her nerves had her bounding up the stairs to her second floor room; she didn't think she could stand waiting for the elevator. As she turned the corner to hurry up the last flight of stairs, she came dangerously close to running into someone coming down.

She barely had enough time to jerk to a stop and grab the handrail to keep herself from falling forward, a gasp of shock escaping her lungs.

"Two times in a single day?" She wished she didn't recognize the patronizing voice.

"You!" she gasped, quickly taking in the foggy eyes and formal attire that belonged to the man in front of her, a step above. "What are you doing here?" she asked abruptly.

He raised an eyebrow. "I live here."

She scrunched her forehead in surprise. She had never seen him before. Then again, she herself had only lived in the apartment complex for eight days.

"Oh. Sorry. But where are you going?"

"A walk," he said, tone clearly stating that he found her question odd. Tenten mentally berated herself. She wasn't in the big city any longer; people here weren't afraid of the dark.

"Oh, right. Okay. Um…goodbye then." She passed around him swiftly, eager to end the conversation before she made an even bigger fool of herself. She was three steps from the top of the staircase when his voice drew her to a complete stop.

"What are you running from?" he asked, and she jumped, having been certain that he had continued on his way. His question sounded far from innocent; a hint of some deeper knowledge tinged his words. What he knew, she didn't know, though.

She turned and met his steady gaze with her questioning one. "Nothing," she said slowly.

"You seem to be in a hurry."

She furrowed her eyebrows. She didn't like the way he seemed to be analyzing her. "So what?" she asked, a bit defensively.

"You're running away from the Drones," he said abruptly, pale eyes boring into hers in a way that almost left her feeling drained, weakened. She found herself gripping the metal handrail with white knuckles, the palms of her hands damp.

"How…how do you know?" she asked, voice barely above a murmur.

"Do you even know who they target?" he asked, completely ignoring her question.

A flash of anger flared inside her. "Look," she started, voice retaining its earlier clipped tones, "I don't know _what_ you're talking about. And stop acting like you know me. You have no idea what you're talking about."

His lips twitched, a grin just beneath the impassive surface. "It would seem like I do. You're running from the Drones. And why is that? Why would they take you?"

"And why not? They don't care," Tenten said, her anger fueled by the stranger's incessant questions. "I know. They take whoever they want. I _know_. That's why I came here, so I would never have to worry about them again. So I wouldn't have to _think_ about them again."

She had meant for these words to be her final ones spoken to him. She hoped that he would get the hint as she turned once more to reach the top of the staircase. Only a hushed voice traveled up the stairs behind her, sending a chill down her spine despite the actual words spoken. "Drones have never come around here before; it's safe in this town. It would do you best to stop worrying" She thought he was finished, but then he said, "I must have been mistaken."

She froze just long enough to hear footsteps retreating down the stairs, and then she hurried back to the safe confines of her apartment.

Unbidden questions filled her mind. There was something he _knew_, she could feel it. But she had absolutely no idea what it was. "Mistaken about what?" she asked under her breath, but of course there was no reply.

* * *

Neji stopped once he was outside the apartment complex, and he leaned against the rough, cold wall with a sigh. He took a refreshing breath of the night air to steady his thoughts, and folded his arms across his chest.

He had really thought that she was _one_. She had a strange energy surrounding her, he was almost certain of it. And yet, she seemed to know nothing about the Drones and their real reasons for attacking people, and he had to stop himself before he let something important slip.

Neji looked up at the small sliver of the moon overhead. "Everything's telling me that you're a sorceress," he said in a tired voice, eyes tracing patterns in the stars. "But at the same time, everything's also telling me you're not. So what am I supposed to believe?" he asked nothing in particular, expecting no answer.

"Then again," he continued, pushing off the wall to head down the dark street, "It's probably better for you if you're not."

* * *

**A/N:** Reviews are always appreciated!


	2. Escape

**Let the Last Tear Fall**

_2. Escape_

_._

_._

_._

_Tenten's eyes fluttered open slowly; it took her a minute to gather her senses. She turned her head to the left to check the small digital clock on her bed-side table; it was just past one in the morning. Suddenly noticing how dry her throat was, she swung her legs out of bed and stood up carefully, letting her senses awaken further. She pushed her messy hair out of her face and it tumbled down to her shoulder blades, let loose from its usual hastily-tied ponytail or bun. _

_Her room was only faintly visible due to the pale silver glow peeping through the blinds over the window. She took a few steps towards her bedroom door, but stopped abruptly as her right foot landed on a patch of carpet that was wet and cold. She flexed her toes experimentally and felt the chilly liquid seep between them._

"_What the…?" Tenten muttered sleepily, and she took a few more steps over to the door, flicking on the light switch. She shielded her eyes as the bright light temporarily blinded her, and she had to blink a few times before the new intensity stopped hurting her pupils._

_There, in the middle of her bedroom, was a dark brown coffee stain. "I don't remember doing that…" Tenten mumbled sleepily as she stared at the stain, but shrugged away the thought as she opened her door, still not enough awake to really comprehend much of anything._

_She crossed the living room slowly after turning on the light, dimly noticing that the window on the far wall was not covered by blinds. She knew something wasn't right with the picture in front of her, but her brain wasn't ready to help her figure out what._

_Everything seemed to have a dreamlike quality to it. _

Now, what am I here for again?_ she asked herself blankly upon entering the cramped kitchen. She gazed vacantly at the wall opposite her, where the window had its blinds drawn. _

_To her side, the sink dripped and the sound reverberated through the silence with an eerie hollowness. Tenten, however, seemed not to notice as she happily remembered what she had gotten out of bed for. _Oh yeah, water.

_Tenten's right foot stuck slightly to the linoleum floor as she made her way over to the sink; every other step gave off the rhythmic sound of the half-dried coffee trying to hold her foot down on the ground. She found herself standing in front of the sink, contemplating where to look for the glasses._

"_I'm pretty sure they're in here," she said, reaching up to open the cupboard above the sink. There was a single, cracked glass at the far back corner of the cupboard, deep in shadows, but when Tenten put her hand out to grab it, it suddenly crumbled into hundreds of tiny shards._

"_Well isn't that strange," Tenten said in awe, with a slight hint of amusement in her voice. She retracted her hand and closed the cupboard. When she looked down at the countertop, she was puzzled to see a cutting board laid out with a sharp knife on top of it. She could swear it hadn't been there moments before._

"_Hm, no. I don't want a knife, I want a glass," Tenten told herself matter-of-factly while shaking her head. She turned on her heel to face the bare countertops on the other side of the narrow kitchen. She took a step forward and was about to open the cupboards when a loud metallic clanging made her jump. She spun around, more out of curiosity than fear._

_Once again, she found the knife on the ground, but this time the tip was pointing towards the kitchen doorway. Tenten's sleep-affected logic had her thinking that the knife was obviously telling her to head in the direction it was pointing, so she stepped over it an into the living room, wondering what she would find there._

"_**Tenten**__."_

_The strange voice seemed to be coming from all around her. And it sounded oddly like…_

"_Is that you?" Tenten asked the empty room, glancing around uncertainly. There was no answer, and a sudden gust of wind blew through the open window, clattering the plastic blinds and causing goose bumps to erupt up her arm. The cool breeze seemed to wake up a part of her brain, and she blinked confusedly._

"_**Tenten**__," the voice said again, this time a notch louder. It was the man from earlier; she recognized his voice._

"_Hello?" Tenten was surprised to hear the nervousness in her voice. She was beginning to feel slightly apprehensive as the last inklings of sleepiness vanished from her mind._

_Things didn't feel quite as dreamlike anymore._

_Another gust blew past the window, and Tenten walked over to it slowly._

_She gently rested her hands on the white-washed wooden surface of the windowsill and looked out into the night, squinting slightly at the frosty breeze. A rustling noise caught her attention from below, and her eyes darted to the base of a tall oak tree that was surrounded by a few bushes just off the cement walkway. She squinted her eyes even more to try to make anything else out in the darkness, but her efforts were futile._

"_**Tenten**__."_

_Tenten's breath caught in her throat and she spun around, certain that the voice had come from right behind her. But the room was empty of all life except her own self. _

"_Hey, sto-" Tenten was cut off by another – yet more frantic – rustle outside, and she turned to stare down once more. The noise stopped and two small, yellow orbs appeared next to the faint outline of the tree trunk, seemingly appearing out of thin air. They floated about five feet off the ground, and Tenten found herself entranced with the strange emergence. _

_Suddenly, the orbs vanished, and Tenten sucked in a surprised breath. But as soon as they disappeared, the two glowing balls of light reappeared a few feet closer than they had been before._

"_What in the world…?" whispered Tenten in utter awe._

"_**Drones have never come around here before."**_

_Tenten turned her head to look behind her again, but as she expected, no one was there, so she looked back down at the orbs. They were moving closer, but very slowly._

_They vanished into the darkness once more… Tenten found herself wishing they would come back already. An emptiness seemed to grow inside of her each time the warmly-tinted lights went out._

"_**Why would they take you?"**_

_His voice…it was coming from farther and farther away._

_They lit up again another few feet closer to the building wall. Now that they were nearer, Tenten thought she could see something hazy surrounding the orbs, but they weren't close enough to be completely illuminated by her living room light. Strange as they were, Tenten couldn't muster the strength to tear her gaze from the glowing lights that were bobbing slowly closer with every passing breath._

"_**It's safe in this town."**_

_This time, Tenten wasn't surprised when the two small lights went out for a brief moment before reappearing ever closer. She _did_ find it strange when she noticed a low humming noise that was barely distinguishable over the wind. Now, the orbs were directly below her window, and a shiver of apprehension skirted up her arms. The longer Tenten stared down at the lights, the more unnerved she became, and the more alien they seemed._

"_**Do you even know **_**who **_**they target?"**_

_The voice seemed to be blending in with the breeze, as it was barely noticeable anymore, so Tenten tried to ignore it so that she could put her full focus on the lights below._

_They went out a few more times, and relit themselves just as many times, and Tenten got the growing feeling that they were staring at her, watching her. It almost seemed like they were…blinking. Like they were eyes._

_A sudden tremble wracked Tenten's body, and she lifted her hands to pull the window shut on instinct, but the humming became dramatically louder. It sounded angered. _

No,_ she told herself, realization kicking in,_ not it, they. _Two orbs, two…creatures._

"_W-what do you want?" Tenten stammered down at the floating orbs. She got no reply, but the humming increased in volume. Then it hit her, and the feeling was so immense and overpowering and terrifying that she felt her whole body go numb before her skin began tingling._

_The orbs weren't orbs. They _were_ eyes. And they had been humming. Buzzing. Whirring. _Droning.

"_Oh god," came her horrified whisper, and though her voice had held no strength at all, it had been heard below. _

_The humming stopped, and so did the wind, leaving only a deafening silence behind. The sole thing Tenten could hear was her heart pounding in her throat, and her arms began shaking violently, still resting on the window. Her fingers twitched anxiously against the wooden paneling framing the glass._

_And then a deafening screech cut through the silence, tearing through her eardrums and echoing violently in her head. Tenten clasped her hands to her ears, yelling in pain. The lights were flickering sporadically as they omitted the terrible noise._

_The volume increased, and Tenten soon had her eyes clamped shut as she staggered away from the window, still completely ajar. She was backing towards the front door, eyes screwed closed, when a sudden frantic pounding made her jump away from that exit._

_She was surrounded. There was no way to escape. But _why_ were they here? Hadn't that man told her that it was safe here?_

_These thoughts clashed together in Tenten's head as she dropped to her knees, the screeching making her dizzy. The sound of wood splintering reached her ears over the shrieking, but Tenten couldn't open her eyes as her front door fell away. _

"_Please."_

_The whisper, more like a plea, escaped her lips before she had thought about what she was saying, but she didn't have time to wonder, as her world seemed to turn upside down beyond her closed eyes. She felt herself falling…_

.

.

.

Tenten gasped and sat bolt upright, unclenching her fisted hands. She felt the clammy sweat that had built up on her brow, as well as the dim prickling in her palms from her fingernails digging into them during the dream.

The same dream she had been having for the past three nights. Always the exact same. Same beginning, middle, and end.

Tenten exhaled sharply and sat up straight; she had fallen asleep on the couch while watching a movie. The blue television screen glared at her from across the room. The clock mounted on the wall a few feet to the right of the TV told her it was little past ten in the morning.

"Another wonderful, dreamless sleep," Tenten sighed dejectedly, flicking the power button on the remote control before standing up and heading straight for the refrigerator in the kitchen. She was relieved to see that there was no knife on the counter. But this relief quickly turned to annoyance when she found her fridge to be nearly empty. She quickly made the decision to go to the store.

The city was just waking up as she passed through its streets. Shops were opening with the ringing of bells, parents were letting their energetic children out to go play at the park, a few early-morning exercisers were going on their daily run. The air smelled crisp; it helped awaken her senses.

And then an even more enticing scent reached her as she passed by the town diner. The scent of breakfast. She felt her stomach rumble hungrily as thoughts of bacon and pancakes and coffee filled her thoughts. She retraced her steps to the diner's door.

Shopping could wait.

* * *

Stomach full and arms laden with plastic bags, Tenten began to make her way home, taking a different route than usual. She decided to take a detour through the center of the town, where the lake was. She knew it would cost her an extra ten to fifteen minutes, but the urge to take a walk had suddenly claimed her.

The grocery bags rustled noisily, their weight a bit irritating, and Tenten hoisted them farther up her arms as they began to leave angry marks on her skin. Soon, the lake came into view, the water shimmering peacefully up ahead. She found herself smiling.

Her shoes crunched a steady rhythm into the fine dirt path that snaked around the perimeter of the lake. She reached out with one arm and ran her hand along the picket fence as she admired the blueness of the water. A tune began playing in her head, one that she used to hear everyday.

She hadn't listened to it for many, many years. The words were lost to time, but the melody was something she couldn't forget. She remembered who had taught it to her, who had sung it to her. The smile, the warm embrace, and the feeling of having a mother. She remembered.

It was a melancholy thing to think about.

A bout of laughter broke her from her depressing reverie, and she looked up to see where the annoying sound had come from.

She faltered, steps coming to a halt as she took in the dark hair and ghostly eyes.

"Oh Neji, you're such a tease!" the slender girl walking next to him cooed, long eyelashes batting.

Tenten saw him – Neji – grimace slightly, which went unnoticed by his companion. The girl reminded Tenten of a wasp; skinny arms and legs and an irritating voice that never seemed to come to a stop.

As they neared, Neji's head turned from looking out at the lake to turn back to the girl, but halfway through the motion his eyes caught sight of Tenten and froze there. He wore no expression, but she felt it again. It was like he was analyzing her.

The waspish girl noticed it as well. "Neji?" she asked, worried now that she had noticed that his attention wasn't directed solely on her. She glanced at Tenten, and her eyes narrowed a bit.

Unnerved by the two pairs of eyes, Tenten ducked her head and resumed walking. She felt a stiff moment of tension as she passed by the pair, and then it was like someone had released their hold on her lungs and she could breathe again.

"Who's she?" she heard the waspish girl ask, but she never heard the answer. The whole walk home she suppressed the urge to shiver; there was something about him that seemed…off.

* * *

­­­­­­­­­­Neji was lying down in his couch with his eyes closed, dozing yet not asleep, when a familiar prickling sensation became apparent in his forehead. His eyes snapped open as he concentrated hard on the presence. It was weak, barely noticeable.

He stood up slowly and glanced out the window. Dusk had already fallen, and the last wisps of pink-tinged clouds were being engulfed by the night sky; the first few stars were peeking through the horizon.

It seemed so serine, so peaceful. Definitely not a place that Drones would appear. So why did he keep feeling these presences? The prickling faded away, and he raised a hand to his forehead absently.

Was he losing his touch? What if there really _were_ no Drones here…

Then, almost as if sensing his thoughts, the prickling shot back up, now ten times as strong. Neji bit back a surprised cry as the needle-like feeling spread through his forehead. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt anything this strong. But he knew where it was coming from.

He bounded to the door and wrenched it open, throwing himself down the hall.

What was going on? He hadn't been informed that any Drones were sent after him. His task was an easy one, after all, so they couldn't be reinforcements. These were most likely rogues, ones that had cut all ties to any allegiance, but that still meant they were his enemies.

He leapt up the stairs, praying he wasn't too late. He skidded to a halt outside a door and hammered on it desperately. He could hear it clearly now.

"Tenten! Open the door!" He didn't care that his voice was probably reaching the ears of everyone within a five mile radius. He had a task to complete, and failure was not acceptable.

"Tenten, open the damned door!" he bellowed again, all the while conscious of the flaring pain in his forehead. He cursed and took a step back.

All it took was a brief moment of extreme concentration, and the hinges of the door splintered and incinerated completely so that Neji could kick it in.

As it fell away, his eyes fell on Tenten, who was staring motionlessly out of the window on the opposite side of the room. She seemed deaf to the world.

"Get away from the window!" he shouted at her, and the window fell shut with a _bang_. The blinds drew themselves across the glass, and only then did Tenten turn around. Neji was surprised to see the intense fear that was etched in her very being; from her dark eyes to her trembling hands to her feet which were moving backwards slowly.

"Y-You're one of them too," she gasped, her voice quaking and breaking as she bumped into the wall. "Please, d-don't hurt me."

"No, you're wrong. I'm here to help you." Neji took a step forward.

"Stop!" Tenten cried, and the raw despair coursed through the air, causing a new wave of pain to attack Neji's forehead. He did stop, more out of surprise than anything else, and looked into her eyes with slight pity. She had no idea what was going on.

"Please, leave me alone. I never did anything to you. Please. Please."

Neji braced himself and began walking forward again. "Tenten, you have to believe me. I'm your only hope of getting out of here unharmed. Just lis-"

"No! Stay away!" Tenten closed her eyes and shouted at the top of her lungs, and as soon as the words had escaped her lips, the air around her rippled and shone as it began to take shape. The barrier closed around her, protecting her from all outside of it.

Her eyes opened slowly, and then widened in fear. She crumpled onto the ground when she saw what she was enclosed in.

"Why are you doing this? Let me out." Her fingers were gripping her arms, sure to leave marks, as she cowered away from the very barrier she had cast around herself.

"Tenten, you're the one doing this!" Neji shouted, frantically trying to decide how to dispel the dome without injuring her. Time was running out.

Suddenly, a blast issued from behind Tenten and the wall exploded inwards, and the room filled with black smoke.

Tenten was thrown forward by the force of the blast. The dome around her seemed to have absorbed the blow, but now it was gone, and she stumbled forward blindly. Neji could just make her out amid the smoke.

He caught hold of her shoulders to steady her as she stumbled toward him. She grasped his shirt in an iron grip, and Neji was too aware of the rapid scuffling of claws climbing up the now destroyed wall.

"Tenten, get a hold of yourself," Neji hissed, shaking her shoulders. She clenched her hands further, and he had to pry them off of his shirt. He grabbed one of her hands in his own hand and said, "Come on, we have to run."

He darted to the door, and Tenten seemed to have regained control over her feet enough to run after him, tripping slightly as they made a sharp turn at the door, but Neji's quick tug steadied her.

They flew down the stairs and into the street, the floor passing beneath their feet in a blur. Tenten following blindly, only guided by Neji's unrelenting grasp on her hand. He was sure that the only reason she wasn't struggling with him was her adrenaline, which was being powered by fear and confusion.

He knew where they needed to go. He took another quick turn down a smaller side street, and they were temporarily thrown into darkness as the tall buildings towering over them. They shot out of the alley like a bullet, and Tenten finally found her voice.

"Wait," she wheezed, pulling her hand back slightly, but still not able to retract it from Neji's. "Stop. Where are we going?" she panted, a little louder this time, wrenching her hand from his grip.

Neji heard her stumble and spun around. "We can't slow down. They're close behind. If we stop they'll catch up," he said through struggled breaths.

Lights were turning on everywhere from through building windows, and the confused yells of citizens reached his ears. They had to get away before they attracted any more attention; they didn't need anyone else on their tail.

Tenten didn't step back from him this time, but she made no indication to move from her spot. "But where are we going?" she asked again, her voice growing desperate. "What's going on? It's not a dream this time, is it?"

A dream? Neji's eyebrows furrowed in question, but something from behind Tenten startled him.

"Move!" he yelled, pushing Tenten to the side roughly, and a powerful shock entered his hand, though its true target had been Tenten's back.

He shouted in pain, and aimed his unharmed hand back towards the alley. A muffled crunch could be heard, and the shocking immediately halted, leaving only a throbbing sensation behind as he flexed his fingers.

The droning sound became louder as six pairs of yellow orbs neared them, slinking out of the shadows. He stepped in front of Tenten, who was staring at the approaching forms with wide, terror-stricken eyes.

"Stay back," he ordered, taking another step forward. It seemed as though fighting was no longer avoidable. He just wished that she wouldn't have to see what was about to happen. Neji's attention rested on the six Drones.

Their thick, grey arms and legs were bare and covered in wrinkles and lumps, as big around as the trunks of small trees. Their stocky chests were clothed in a single breastplate of some dull metal, with a thin cloth attached that billowed down to their knees. The same fabric covered their backs, and their heads were completely hooded in metal helmets with only a large enough gap to reveal their eerie, shining eyes. They were like a species of mutated ogres, or half-giants. They weren't a pretty sight.

As they neared, they emanated their eerie buzzing sound. They held no weapons in their clawed hands; they needed none.

Neji took a steadying breath and focused his energy into his palms, eyes narrowing as he waited to see if they would continue their advance. He released an outward breath, and the same crunching from before sounded ahead of him, before the leading two Drones crumpled and fell to the ground, completely lifeless, bodies twisting at weird angles.

He heard a sharp intake of breath from behind him and knew that Tenten was probably on the verge of collapsing. The four other Drones merely stepped over their dead companions, paying no heed to his warning.

Suddenly, they charged with a cry of battle, sprinting towards him in a line. They were like a wave of dark power, ready to crash down on him. He fell the two in the middle with bolts of energy from his hands, but that gave the last pair an opening.

The one on the right let out a loud shriek, and Neji felt the force rippling through the air in his direction. He managed to duck under the attack and fire his own back, but all too late he realized that he had fallen into their trap. While this one was engaging him in battle, the other had run around him and was heading straight for Tenten.

"Tenten!" he shouted. "Run!" But she could only stand there in fear, limbs frozen. Neji had to take his eyes off of her to dodge the next stream of energy that shot towards him, and in the blink of an eye his attacker was dead.

Then he heard Tenten scream. When he whipped his head around again, the Drone was at her feet.

It was dead.

"It…it grabbed me," she whimpered, stepping away from the monster. "It grabbed my arm, and then I felt this fire, and then it was…" She didn't finish her sentence. She hugged her arms into her stomach and looked away from the Drone, eyes scouring the houses frantically.

Neji took little time to absorb this information before once again grabbing her hand and pulling her after him.

She gasped his name, and attempted to ask where they were going.

"First let's get away from here. Then we'll worry about where exactly we're headed," he said over his shoulder, and felt Tenten's hand tighten around his in response.

The rapid pounding of their feet crashing through the edge of the town, and their heavy breathing, were only things that Neji's ears could register. They had to run. They had to get away from the rogue Drones that were after them.

Or her.

The forest rose out of the darkness ahead, its trees casting shadows over shadows. The dirt underfoot gave way to leaves, and then they were lost in the woods.

He was completely unaware of the tears streaming down Tenten's face behind him, before the droplets were caught by the wind and whipped away into the cold night air.


	3. Betrayal

**Let the Last Tear Fall**

_3. Betrayal_

They had been running for what seemed like hours, although it could not have been longer than half of one. Breath came to Tenten in forced, ragged gasps as the effort seemed to shred her lungs. Her legs were on fire from exhaustion, but she continued forward, lead by Neji's ever present tug on her hand. The adrenaline was long gone.

Neither had spoken a word miles, though none needed to be said. She was past the point of asking questions, of even thinking of turning around, because all that awaited her back in the small town were questions and dead Drones. And possibly even more alive ones. And Tenten was terrified at the prospect of having to face more of those monsters. She was fine with throwing caution to the winds and following the mostly-stranger ahead of her, at least until her fear subsided.

Finally, she could stand the exhaustion no longer, and her numbed legs began stumbling and tripping. Not long after, her foot got caught on a tree root sticking out of the ground. For a brief moment her stomach seemed to drop right out of her as she fell, her hand sliding out of Neji's grasp, but all too soon the ground rushed up to meet her.

Tenten coughed out a puff of air as the wind was knocked out of her, and she did not try to stand back up once the world had stopped spinning. She couldn't feel her legs enough to move them, but she did fold her arms under herself, grasping at the searing pain in her sides. Now that she was no longer running, she was completely aware of the toll it had done to her body. She gritted her teeth against the throbbing and turned her head to the side so that the dirt beneath her didn't suffocate her.

"Tenten."

She barely heard Neji's voice over the blood pounding in her ears, but she still opened her eyes. He was standing over her.

"I can't…no more running…I can't," Tenten panted.

To her surprise, Neji simply nodded. "I understand. We've gone far enough." He was barely out of breath. Tenten let her eyes fall shut.

A heavy silence followed. Tenten remained on her stomach, breathing in the musty scent of the soil beneath her. She heard the crunching leaves that meant Neji was walking around, observing the area. Gradually, Tenten's breathing returned to normal, and the ache in her sides dulled. She pushed herself to her knees slowly, taking in their surroundings for the first time through wary eyes.

Truthfully, not very much could be seen, with night having long since taken over the sky. The only light provided came from the silver stars and moon overhead, but the trees blotted out most of their glow.

"Neji," Tenten said his name for the first time; it felt foreign on her tongue. He met her eyes, and she felt very small, still kneeling on the canopy of dry leaves. "Where are we?" A hint of fear laced her words, but she tried to swallow it down.

Neji answered her calmly. "We're in the middle of the forest, a few miles from Aelia. I'm pretty sure that no one is following us right now, so we can take a break." It wasn't like he had much choice in that matter, anyway.

"And after our break what do we do?" Still hesitation, still fear.

"We keep moving. What else?"

He made it sound simpler than it was.

"But to _where_?" Tenten asked in a forced voice, feeling utterly hopeless as she stared into Neji's pale eyes. They seemed to glow in the light cast by the moon and stars, and Tenten felt the sensation of sinking. Neji broke her gaze by tilting his head upwards to look at the sky before answering in his low voice.

"Away from where we were."

Tenten's eyes narrowed at Neji's shadow-trimmed silhouette.

She didn't like the not-quite-answers. She was sick of it, sick of not knowing the truth. She felt that ever since their first meeting, she had been missing something. She felt like he knew something that she was supposed to, and he wouldn't tell her what that was.

Tenten got to her feet; the change in elevation seemed to bring some courage back into her blood.

"That's not answering anything," she snapped, annoyance clouding her feelings.

Neji turned his head to face her, an irritatingly passive expression on his face. "Isn't it?" he asked. "We _are_ going in the opposite direction from where we had been."

Tenten opened her mouth to snap something back, but a cold realization silenced her. "You don't know, do you? You have no idea where you're going."

Neji sighed, and Tenten's hopes sunk even lower at the hollowing sound. "I am not _exactly _sure where I'm going. But I know that there's a small city on the other side of this forest. If we get there, you can hide out for a while. Does that make you feel any better?"

It didn't, for many reasons. Firstly, the _if_ – not the _when_ – that he used. And he had made it sounds like once they were through the forest, he would be leaving her to fend for herself.

"And why should I follow you? What makes _you_ any safer to be around than those Drones? Why should I even trust you?" Tenten asked, though with little conviction. She had little choice.

A small smirk snaked its way onto Neji's collected face, almost as if he had read her last thought. "You can either trust me or not. So far I haven't done anything to harm you; quite the contrary actually. It would be in your best interests to stick with me for now. You probably wouldn't do too well on your own in this forest."

That was very true, Tenten noted with reluctance. She was practically helpless without him at the moment.

Neji turned his back on her and began to walk away. Evidently, their break time was over, and now it was up to Tenten to decide whether or not to follow him deeper into the trees. She followed, and the shifting shadows swallowed them both.

She had no choice.

* * *

"You want me to sleep in _there_?"

Neji didn't grace Tenten with an answer. He ducked into the hollowed-out tree trunk and settled down against its far wall, facing Tenten.

"But what if some animal lives in there?" Tenten spluttered, eyeing the old and particularly enormous tree with mistrust. "What if it's a bear's home? Or a wolf's? Or-"

"If your heart is really that set on sleeping out in the open, I won't try to stop you, Tenten."

Tenten bit her lip and cast a wary look around the shadowed forest before joining Neji in the cozy tree trunk. The inner walls were smooth, and when she looked up she couldn't see how far the hollow stretched, but there was enough room to sit comfortably. The ground, however, was littered with twigs and spiny leaves, and they poked her skin through her pants.

Tenten ceased her shuffling after she had swept a layer of debris out of the way and rested her back against the trunk. She brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. The chill of the night air was beginning to send small goose bumps up her bare arms. She wished she had long sleeves.

A breeze whistled through the trees. Leaves rustled loudly and shadows contorted, and a low moan sounded from far off. Tenten's heart froze mid-beat, and she stared out of the hollow with terrified eyes.

"It's only the wind." She looked over at Neji, who was gazing in the same direction she had been. His face was blank, a clean slate. She couldn't tell if he believed his own words or not.

"This is stupid," Tenten said quietly, crossing her arms over her knees and burying her face in them. "How can you act like nothing's wrong?" Her voice was muffled, but not enough to hide the waver in it. "Doesn't it bother you at all, what just happened a few hours ago?"

Neji opened his mouth to answer, but Tenten abruptly lifted her head, sending him an inquisitive look. "Why are you helping me? And how do you even know my name?" Her tone was laced with mistrust.

She furrowed her eyebrows when Neji's lips tweaked upwards.

"Your name? I asked people."

"Why –"

He cut her off. "And for why I'm helping you. How do I explain…?"

He turned his head to catch her eyes. "I'm sure you feel it too, Tenten. That strange connection you feel towards me, almost like I'm a long-lost acquaintance, even thought I'm not. It's because of who – what we are."

She felt her forehead crinkle in confusion. She hadn't felt like they were long-lost acquaintances. She _had_ always had the feeling that he was hiding some important piece of knowledge from her, something that had to do with her.

_It's because of who – what we are._

Time stopped, and the world became silent. It was like someone had slapped her in the face; everything had just _clicked_. The dead Drone. The strange force field.

Her mouth fell open, her eyes darting between his as she searched for the right words. Very quietly, she uttered, "Because I can do…what you can do?"

He nodded, and it was like some heavy weight had been dropped into her chest at the motion, adding to what was already there. It made sense, but she wished that it didn't.

She looked down at her hands, opening her palms so that the sparse moonlight illuminated them in a silver sheen. Lines of black dirt filled the creases, like rivers, like blood. "Did I…_kill_ that Drone?"

"Yes, you did."

Tenten clenched her hands into fists. They trembled against her knees.

"It was unavoidable," Neji assured her tonelessly. "You were its prey. It was either kill or be killed. Be thankful that there is one less Drone in this world; they are nothing but monsters, filth," he said bluntly, keeping his voice collected and not betraying any unnecessary emotion.

Tenten peered up at him; he was still staring at her. She gained no comfort from his empty eyes. If anything, she felt even colder.

"But why me?" she choked out, feeling her eyes sting at the corners. The fright and grief had built up for far too long. "Why do I have to have these…powers? Why can't it be someone who actually wants them? Was I its _prey_ because of these powers?" She struggled to keep her voice low.

"It's not a matter of why or why not, it's just a matter of what _is_ and _is not_. You, Tenten, are a sorceress. It's not something you can run away from, it's just what you happen to be." Tenten waited quietly for the rest of his answer while repeating the word over and over in her head.

_Sorceress._

Her eyes lowered her eyes to her fists. It sounded like something out of a little kid's book, about magic and dragons and fairy princesses. But she knew that this was anything but simple children's magic. There was nothing innocent about what she had done to that monster.

Finally, Neji answered her last question. "And yes, you were attacked because you are a sorceress."

She met his eyes once more, and for a split second she saw some foreign emotion glint across them, but then she blinked and she was sure she had been imagining it. By the way his eyebrows furrowed slightly, she knew that there was something else on his mind.

She waited, not knowing what else to do. She waited and stared at him, at how his face was illuminated in pale light, and how his mouth showed nothing of the emotion portrayed in his eyebrows, at how he was so _calm_ and unperturbed. She couldn't begin to fathom what he had seen of this frightening world she felt that she had just been introduced to.

"Call it fate," he said finally. "Somehow, for some reason, you were destined to become a sorceress. And, in turn, you were destined to be hunted by those who see all sorcerers as threats to their very existence: the Drones. There is no other explanation, that's just the way it has always been."

Tenten let her head drop back into her arms. "But I don't want this. And why now? Why is it starting now? Why hasn't anything like this happened to me before?" She shook her head back and forth slowly, speaking into her knees.

"You will come to accept it someday."

"How do you know?" There was a twinge of stubbornness behind her question.

"Because that's how it always is. You actually seem to be accepting it more readily than most."

"How can I not, with it's so obviously true?" she whispered, not really to anyone.

And with that their conversation ended. After the silence had spanned several minutes, a small breeze picked up once more, rustling the tree leaves together and sending a shiver down her spine. She pulled her knees closer, willing herself to forget where she was and think about something happy.

She remembered the tune, and slowly its long-lost melody pulled her into a broken slumber.

She dreamed about darkness and the sound of falling sand in the distance, somewhere she couldn't see. It was cold, in her dream, and when she was sure that she would freeze, she felt something warm wrap around her. The melody picked up again, echoing from far away.

* * *

Tenten opened her eyes at the sound of leaves crunching and twigs snapping. She yawned widely, and through her teary vision she saw Neji duck out of the hollow tree trunk. She didn't feel like moving; her limbs were heavy and she felt so warm, like there had been a blanket over her shoulders.

Neji, it seemed, was in quite the opposite mood.

"Are you ready to go?" he asked abruptly, turning to her once he was beyond their shelter.

"What?" Tenten asked, sleep fogging her thoughts and making them sluggish.

Neji spared her a lingering glance before surveying the surrounding forest in the golden light that filtered through the dense branches. "We need to go," he said. Tenten thought he sounded a bit distracted.

She also noticed that the air wasn't very warm; there was a crispness to it that was a bit too chilly than she liked. But then why had she felt so warm when she woke up?

"Are you ready or not?"

Neji was looking at her again, right foot tapping impatiently against the ground. With another yawn, Tenten crawled to her feet, using the wall of the tree to support herself. She didn't have to duck as much as Neji to exit the hollow.

Once she was in the clearing, she felt her lips part in surprise. The same forest that had seemed to menacing and unforgiving the previous night was absolutely beautiful in the daylight. The leaves were a baked gold tinged green. Tenten raised her eyes to look up; small patches of blue sky peeked through the canopy.

Neji began tapping his foot again.

"Sorry. Yes, I'm ready. Let's go," Tenten said with an apologetic grimace.

And so they went, Neji following his own path through the maze of trees, Tenten following a short distance behind. Maybe it was the change in lighting, but as she watched him from behind and caught brief glimpses of his face, she didn't think that Neji looked all that intimidating anymore.

_Maybe…Maybe he really will help me._

A short while later, Tenten became aware of a gnawing feeling in her stomach. "Um, do we have any food?" she asked. "I don't usually skip breakfast, and I'm guessing it's probably around noon, so…" she trailed off with the impression that Neji wasn't paying her any attention.

Then she remembered the waspish girl, and she scowled. She hoped they would be through the forest soon. Though it was pretty now, she didn't want to be stuck under its monstrous shadows when night fell again. Just the thought gave her goosebumps, and she rubbed her arms absently, eyes scanning through the monotonous grove of trees.

Then, without warning, Neji came to a halt.

"Why'd you stop?" Tenten asked, furrowing her eyebrows.

Neji was still for another moment, and then said quietly, "We're almost there."

"Really?" She had the sudden urge to hug him, but decided against it. She didn't want to scare him away before he got her back to civilization.

"Come on," Neji said firmly, continuing forward once more. Tenten quickly started after him, anticipation building in her stomach. To her, the forest didn't look like it was thinning at all, but she trusted that Neji knew where he was going.

She was trusting him, which surprised her. She didn't allow herself to trust many people anymore, but she supposed such an extreme sequence of events forced people to build trust faster than usual.

"Hey, Neji…?" she began. His name was still strange to say. Maybe it was because he had never actually told it to her, but she had merely overheard it being spoken. Or maybe it was because she still thought of him as a complete stranger, so it was odd knowing what his name was.

Either way, he answered. "What?"

"I guess I owe you a lot, you know, for saving me and all. This is probably the only time I'm going to say it, so –"

"Don't," Neji's voice cut across hers, like an order. Her sentence remained unfinished due to the warning in his tone.

She raised an eyebrow. "Why not?" she asked.

Neji stopped walking again, and Tenten saw his shoulders rise and fall in a sigh.

"Because."

She stopped as well, trying to discern his expression from what she could hear in his voice. She gained nothing from staring at his back "Because why?" she pressed on, uncomfortable at the sudden atmosphere that she felt shrouding him. She unconsciously took a step back.

"You will only regret it."

A twig snapped from somewhere behind her, and Tenten jumped. She hadn't noticed how eerily quiet the forest had gone, no birds singing, no crickets chirping, nothing. It was the type of silence that was so quiet, it was almost loud. Her heart rate began increasing.

"What…do you mean, Neji?" Tenten asked slowly, narrowing her eyes at his back. A sudden chill swept through her body, and she automatically rubbed her arms, trying to rid herself of the sensation that something or someone was watching her. They hadn't been followed, had they? Neji would have noticed, right?

She felt like something suffocating was being placed over her heart; the weight was beginning to upset her nerves.

Tenten took a step farther from Neji, eyes sweeping through the trees in suspicion. She could tell something was wrong. She knew it was true, she could feel it in her very bones, and just when she had made up her mind to run, a terrible screeching broke tore through the forest.

Tenten cried out in pain, clasping her hands over her ears and closing her eyes in a grimace. Something heavy and rough landed on her shoulder, and a startled gasp escaped her, but the scream following was quieted.

A hand clamped itself over her mouth and her eyes shot open. Neji was standing in front of her, one hand muffling her yells. Behind him was another Drone.

Its thick fingers flexed, and Tenten eyed the chipped, yellow claws with wide eyes. It could probably kill her with one blow with its massive arms, the sickly gray skin mottled with vile lumps. She was aware of its yellow eyes on her, the only things visible through its helmet, but she couldn't look at them.

It towered over Neji by a good three feet, but it made no move to attack him. Low hums echoed off its body, and Tenten could feel the faint vibrations through the hand grasping her shoulder. Neji wasn't looking at her; his gaze was cast to the side.

She shook her head frantically, trying to get rid of his hand. She considered biting it until she felt pointy claws dig into her shoulder. She fell still immediately after, too afraid to move.

Desperate tears formed in the corners of her eyes. With a blink, one fell down her cheek, eventually stopping at Neji's hand. He looked at her then, eyes narrowing as something stirred in their depths. He lifted his hand away.

"Why?" she whispered, her voice forced. Neji raised his hands towards her face, and for one brief moment Tenten thought he was going to wipe away her tears, but he ended up resting two fingers on each of her temples. His pale eyes held her brown ones for a soundless moment, and Tenten tried frantically to see a hint of assurance in them, but it was obvious that this was no joke.

"I'm sorry that I have to do this, Tenten."

She felt a quick shock at her temples, and her head immediately felt heavy and disoriented. Everything melted together together, her vision becoming more and more blurred. Her surroundings mixed together into blackness. She forgot how to keep her balance, and she faintly felt the clawed hands releasing her shoulders. Surrounded by darkness, Tenten fell forward, but couldn't tell when she had stopped falling; she could no longer feel.

The droning that seemed to be coming from all around her was the last thing she was able to distinguish before the world went silent.


	4. Request

**Let the Last Tear Fall**

_4. Request_

Neji stood still, staring determinedly at the figure seated in the stone chair at the far side of the room, cast mostly in shadow. The room was dark, the only source of light being the torch flickering on the wall behind Neji, which cast an eerie orange glow across the floor and walls nearest the flame. The rest of the large, empty room was engulfed by a blackness that was almost palpable.

Neji waited in silence until he was addressed.

Finally, the chair's occupant spoke. "It has been three days." The stone walls caught the sound and amplified it, causing the deep voice to echo.

"It has," Neji agreed, his tone guarded. His low voice seemed to repeat over and over, each time quieting until it could no longer be heard.

A set of pale eyes opened, appearing to float in the darkness where the figure's voice had come from. The torch flickered, and the shadows shifted to momentarily illuminate a pale hand resting on a knee, before the darkness morphed back to its original placement.

"And I assume you will be the one to persuade her?" It was a statement disguised as a question; the man's voice revealed expectation, expectation of the answer he required and knew he would get. There was no room for any answer besides yes.

Neji did not reply right away. Instead he stared back into the pair of white eyes that shone through the darkness, much like his own did.

"Yes, uncle," he said at last.

"Very well."

Neji knew he had just been dismissed, so he turned quietly and followed the torch light to the large iron door. He grasped the cool metal in his hand and pulled. The door squeaked open after a moment of resistance, allowing a small stream of dull light to invade the heavy darkness of the chamber. He slipped through the opening quickly. The door shut after him with a resounding clang. He headed off down the hallway towards the left.

The atmosphere was much the same in the hall as in the chamber, though the stone ceilings were lower, more claustrophobic. The earthy smell was just as strong, though, giving the air a certain substance. The meager light came from torches lined up on the walls, one every fifteen feet. Bright light was both unfavorable and unnecessary in the tunnels.

Neji's footsteps resounded through the narrow hallway as he headed for the larger adjoining hallway. He took a few turns through the tunnels, which eventually brought him to another, wider hall. At the very end he came across another iron door, its surface sleek and smooth with a single round knob disrupting the evenness.

Neji turned the knob briskly entered. The lighting was bright and artificial on this side of the door; he blinked his eyes a few times until they adjusted.

In front of him lay a large room with wooden benches laid out in the middle of the linoleum floor. A few men and women were sitting around eating a meal from a plastic tray, though it was late and most had already finished dinner.

Neji sighed heavily. This would be troublesome, no doubt, but he couldn't deny his uncle's orders.

* * *

Tenten's head jerked up at the loud click of the lock in the iron door imprisoning her. It was pushed inwards with a noisy scraping sound. She squinted up at the dark figure looming in the doorway, the torchlight creeping around the corners of the opening too bright in comparison to the usual darkness of her cell.

The visitor made no move as she squinted up at him. Once her eyes had adjusted enough to make out the stranger's face, she stiffened instantly, back straightening against the rough wall behind her.

"_You_."

Her voice lashed out with such venom, she was momentarily surprised at the depth of the poison in her tone. But his voice swept away that surprise, and the loathing once more took over.

"Good evening, Tenten."

She bristled and clenched her fists, glaring up at him. With her jaw clenched and eyebrows angled dangerously, she didn't even have to utter her warning.

_Don't you dare come closer._

Though she was completely expecting the next two steps forward Neji took, she still spat out, "Stay the _hell_ away from me, you lying, manipulative, _bastard_." The three long, long days she had spent alone in this unforgiving prison had fueled a cold fire within her. And now she had someone to lash out at.

Someone well deserving of her sharp words.

But Neji didn't seem to feel the sting of her verbal attacks. It was when he bent down in front of her did she notice the tray full of food in his hands, which he placed a few inches from her feet.

"Your dinner," he announced, sounding almost bored.

Tenten didn't even have to look at its contents to know what meager meal was provided: a small loaf of bread, steamed rice and carrots, and a glass of water. The same dinner she had been given three times before. She pushed it aside with her foot.

"My, how gracious of you," she sneered. "Where's the usual guy?"

"I have a request of you," Neji said bluntly, ignoring her question.

Tenten narrowed her eyes. "Oh. Really? Well I'm not interested. Now, _leave_." She shifted her shoulders to settle herself more comfortably into the nook formed by the wall and the corner of her low bed. She crossed her arms and stared at him, waiting for him to leave.

He sighed. "I'm sorry Tenten, but I can't –"

"Hah! Sorry! Of course you are Neji, because you just care so _damn_ much about what happens to me, right? You sure showed that back in the woods, didn't you?" Her words were thick with contempt.

"Tenten, let me finish," Neji interjected fruitlessly, but Tenten wouldn't hear of it. Not now that her one source of fury had come straight to her door.

"Oh no, Neji. _You_ let _me_ finish. Let me tell you this, because I'm sure you need to hear it, Mr. Night in Shining Armor, who swept to my rescue and saved me from the evil monsters, only to promise my safety once we passed through the forest of doom. But no, you decided to be the damn cliché villain and turn on me _right_ when I decided to trust you. And you think you can just say _sorry._"

"Tenten, keep your voice –"

"I've been in this godforsaken _hellhole_ for what I have concluded has been three days, because the usual meal guy is nice enough to tell me when it's day or night, because guess what. It's always dark in here! It's dark and I'm some prisoner for some reason that I can't even imagine! Thanks to you! And now you're saying – Neji what the hell _open the door_!"

Tenten scrambled to her feet just as the door was swung shut, immersing her and Neji in the thick blackness she had grown used to, but was always blind in. She pushed herself as far back into the wall as possible, her heart hammering madly now that she could no longer see the traitor.

"As I was saying..." Neji's voice drifted through the darkness, and it gave the sensation that it was coming from all corners of the room. "I'm sorry Tenten, but I can't leave yet."

"Neji, open the door!" Tenten warned, standing on her tiptoes in an attempt to flatten herself even further into the stone behind her. Her voice wavered slightly, and she scraped her fingernails against the rocky wall.

Neji's calm voice met her ears again. "Are you afraid of the dark?"

After being stuck in it for so long, the darkness itself wasn't the sole source of her fears. Now the tables were turned. Neji was in control, and Tenten couldn't see him anymore, didn't know where he was or what he was going to do. She was too vulnerable.

"Open the door!" she ordered again, even more frantically.

Neji countered in a detached voice, "Then stop yelling and listen to what I have to say."

Tenten bit her lip and nodded her head reluctantly, then realized that Neji probably couldn't see her in the darkness. "Fine. Just…make it light again," she said, aware of defeat when it occurred.

She heard Neji shuffle around in front of the door, but instead of the low scraping sound of metal sliding away from metal, Tenten heard another click followed by a rusty screech. Suddenly, a square of light was illuminated on the door, and then she realized that it was a window. She had never noticed because of the sheer invisibility of anything inside the room, and only knew where the bed, walls, and door were after a few painful collisions which helped her memorize their positions.

Tenten wasn't satisfied with the scanty amount of light filtering through.

"What about the door?"

"I don't trust that you won't burst out again, so I'm keeping it closed until I leave."

Tenten bit her lip, feeling the worry in her brows. Neji's eyes shone frostily in the poor lighting, almost as if they were chiseled from ice. Tenten she tried to keep as much bite in her voice as possible when she gave in to Neji's condition.

"Fine… tell me what you want. And hurry it up."

Neji nodded and moved to step forward, and Tenten flattened herself onto the wall again, trying to keep as much distance between them as possible.

"No, don't move! Stay away from me!"

Neji sighed, sounding as uninterested as ever with the scene unfolding in front of him. "Well, I guess I should start by telling you why you're here."

"Please do, because frankly, it makes no sense to me at all," Tenten said coldly. I thought you said you _hated_ the Drones, Neji. Or was that just another lie? Because next thing I know you're helping them catch me."

"I do hate them. They're nothing but lowly monsters."

"Then why did you help them? It looked to me like they're your allies."

"They are _not_ allies," Neji said forcefully, his voice speaking his disgust and loathing, and Tenten saw his pale eyes flash in warning. "They're just…servants. Servants that do what they're told. And they were told to capture you. Why?" he continued, cutting her off before she could interrupt. "Because you're a sorceress."

Tenten looked at him in mistrust. "But I thought you said Drones wanted to _kill_ sorcerers, not capture them. Or was that _another_ lie?"

"It wasn't a lie; the majority of them do want to do just that. But there are a few who have agreed to work with us, they've been promised amnesty for any crimes committed against sorcerers if they in turn promise to help track down and kill the rogues, the ones striving for power alone."

"I don't get it," Tenten said warily, and her voice had even lost its cold edge in her contemplation. "Who's _us_? Why does this _us_ even need to kill Drones?"

"Because, if we don't kill the Drones, they will kill us. It's as simple as that. They are hungry for power, and we're the only ones standing in their way. They come after us with murder in their hearts, so the best way to keep ourselves safe is to wipe out the threat they pose."

Tenten was amazed, and frightened, at how lightly Neji could speak of such killing. He spoke of it with a blank face and even tone. She wondered if it was a routine thing for him, to kill. A chill sped down her spine at the thought.

_What_ exactly was she trapped in this room with?

"I don't get why you're telling me all this." She began to worry that her incessant questions would anger him, but she had nothing else to say. "What do _I_ have to do with all of this? I'm obviously not a Drone, so why am I here? And who's _us_?"

Neji answered smoothly, "_Us _refers to the sorcerers and sorceresses dedicated to this cause. Of destroying the Drones. You are tied into all of this because you're a sorceress." His voice hardened, authority sewn into its tenor. "We expect you to help us."

Tenten gaped at him for a full minute, her brain working furiously to try to make sure she had understood him correctly. At first she was shocked, but slowly the anger took over and her tone reverted back to its old coldness.

"Let me get this straight," she started slowly. "You want me to join your little Drone-killing cult, so you capture me and throw me in this _jail cell_. And then you just expect me to agree to help you." She lowered her voice dangerously. "I would _never_ help you."

Neji stepped forward. "Tenten, let me _explain_," he demanded with a hint of exasperation.

"_Please_ explain," Tenten spat back, balling her hands into fists and stepping away from the wall, closer to him. "Is this how you treat people you want a favor from? You think that locking me in a pitch-black cell will get me on your good side? What kind of dense, brainless, _idiot_ are-"

But Neji had had enough of her bickering and her yelling and her occasional deadpan question. "Tenten, just listen to me!" he shouted, eyes flashing. Tenten shied back out of surprise, caught completely off guard by razor-edge in his tone.

"Stop trying to turn this all around on me, Tenten." he said coldly. His eyes narrowed and his lips drew into a thin line. "I am not the one who is behind all of this. That's all I'll say, not that it makes any difference. The important part is that you have no choice, because you _will_ agree to join us."

Tenten winced at the harshness of Neji's words, at the commanding finality. She could tell that he saw her as nothing more than a mere pawn in a chess game.

She felt her resolve weakening, but still she stammered, "But…can't I say no? What if I don't want to be some…Drone killer?"

Neji baffled her by allowing a condescending smirk to twist his lips. "You don't _have_ to agree to my request, but in reality, you have no choice," he told her.

"What do you mean?"

Neji stepped forward, now mere inches in front of her, and with the smirk still on his face he said, "Can't you see what position you're in, Tenten? You can't refuse, and you won't."

"And what makes you so sure?" Tenten clenched her fists, but she took a step back.

Neji followed her. When she was once more against the wall, he reached up and cupped her bare shoulder in one hand. She stiffened against his rough hand, but didn't voice her defiance. It was what he wanted. He wanted her to lose control, to lose her head, so that he could take advantage of her more easily. Instead, she bit back a retort and glared straight back into his empty, colorless eyes.

She couldn't deny it. She hated him.

"You have no choice," Neji murmured in a low voice, and his smirk grew as he dragged his thumb against Tenten's collarbone. She shuddered but still held her tongue. If looks could kill, she was sure that he would be nothing more than a bloody mass on the cold, hard ground.

"You have no choice," he repeated, leaning closer, and she was tempted to spit in his eyes. Her train of though was lost when she felt his hand skim up the side of her neck until it rested on her cheek, and she sucked in a breath.

"Neji –"

A thumb on her lips effectively silenced her.

"It's for your own good, Tenten."

She let out a shaky breath through her nose, her heart hammering hard and fast. What was he doing? Neji took another small step forward and Tenten could almost feel his body heat.

"It's the safest move you can make, agreeing to join us."

She jerked her head away from his hand and looked to the side when she spoke. "And what will you do if I don't? Kill me? Torture me? I can't even _do_ anything. I don't know how to use my…powers."

"We'll teach you. You're not a unique case, Tenten. We know how to deal with you and make you stronger."

So there were others. Tenten wondered how they had been recruited and if they had agreed to join easily or if they had been as stubborn as her. When she tried to imagine them, she saw an army. An army of emotionless, soulless men and women standing in ordered rows and dressed in identical uniforms, and intent to kill hung around them like a thick blanket. She didn't want to become someone – something – like that. The thought alone was terrifying.

"I'm not a murderer, Neji. I won't do it."

"They're Drones, Tenten. They are not human; their lives aren't worth as much as a human's. They are the pests, and we are the exterminators."

Tenten gave Neji an incredulous look. Yes, Drones were monsters; she knew it and accepted it. But murder was murder, and she knew that as well. When she had killed the Drone before, she hadn't known what she was doing, and it was over too quickly to think about. And it had been necessary. But the way that Neji spoke about killing them made it sound like he had no heart at all.

She had a heart. And she didn't know if hers could handle doing something so ruthless.

"I will be expecting your answer tomorrow."

Neji seemed convinced that he would get no further response out of Tenten, so he turned to the door. "You know what the right decision is." He closed the window and opened the door with a loud _creak_, turning back towards Tenten only once he was in the hallway.

"Until you give me the answer I'm looking for, you will stay in your cell. No light."

The door closed and the room went pitch black again.

Suffocating, strangling, drowning.

Tenten closed her eyes and slowly sunk to the ground. She felt around for her tray of food, and when she found it her dinner was cold. She ate in silence, not tasting what she put in her mouth but feeling the cold bits slide down her throat with difficulty. The sudden urge to cry overwhelmed her, like it had done so often since she had been locked up.

She hated it. Tenten had once thought of herself as a proud young woman who was strong and independent. And now…now she didn't feel strong at all. Ever since she had first met Neji, something inside of her had started crumbling away. The wall she had built up, the wall that kept her controlled and secure… It wasn't helping anymore.

She hated crying. She hated being so vulnerable and so damned weak and feeling like some pitiful creature. And yet, she relished it as well. When she was at her lowest, most broken down state, she was finally able to release the wave of sorrow and fear and confusion swirling inside of her. It made her feel better for a little while; the lump in her throat went away and the knot in her stomach lessened and the effort of letting all those tears flow made her tired, and eventually she fell into a dreamless sleep.

But when she woke up she was still trapped in her dark room, blind and utterly lost. And it would all build up again until she would cry out all her feelings and eventually fall asleep once more. Her past three days in confinement had gone exactly like this; it was like a rinse and repeat cycle.

And now, as she forced the flavorless pieces of food past the painful lump in her throat, she felt the impending teardrops prick at the corners of her eyes. She didn't even try to hold them back this time, there was no point. No one would see, so she let the liquid stream down her face and onto the floor in a quiet _drip drop_ rhythm.

She was breaking.

Or maybe she was already broken.

Still, one thought burned brightly in her mind.

She wouldn't agree to Neji's demand. She wouldn't become a killer. She wasn't willing to lose the last pinprick of self-respect she still had.


	5. Dream

**Let the Last Tear Fall**

_5. Dream_

As he had promised, Neji returned to see Tenten the next evening. She was huddled on the ground, in the nook between the bed frame and the wall, exactly where she had been the night before. The torchlight illuminated her bronze arms and messy hair, and before Neji could so much as take a step into the cell, Tenten spoke up.

"No."

He raised an eyebrow, wondering if she was telling him to leave, but he stepped into the dingy room anyway, dinner tray in hand. He did not close the door; he wouldn't be staying long anyway. After placing Tenten's dinner at her feet, Neji focused his attention on her.

"I assume you have your answer now?"

Tenten narrowed her eyes. "I already told you. No."

Neji let out a heavy sigh. "I don't think you understood me correctly last time, Tenten. I asked for the _right_ answer."

"And I don't think _you_ understand me now," Tenten spat, dark eyes already blazing in defiance. "I said no, as in I'm not going to become one of your killing machines. That's my answer: no."

"No?" Neji repeated, somewhat amused at her boldness, though mostly irritated. She didn't seem at all intimidated by him, even though she had to crane her neck to meet his eyes.

"No," Tenten repeated with firm finality. She kept her eyes trained on his face to see how he would react, but he kept his expression impassive.

He was trained to do so. It came easy to him to hide frustration, anger, and pretty much any emotion, so instead of raising his voice he simply said in a calm tone, "The longer you refuse, the longer you stay in here."

"So? It's not like _you _care."

"I'm glad you understand that," Neji said coldly, and he crossed his arms as he stared down at her.

She was absolutely correct: he did not care. And it wasn't that he just didn't care about _her_. He just didn't care, period. It was another emotion he was trained to forget and live without. Caring was a sign of emotional attachment, which lead to dependency on others, which in turn lead to weakness. And weakness was not tolerated. _Uncle_ had made that clear a long time ago.

_Uncle_ was the reason Neji was in Tenten's cell in the first place. _Uncle_ was the one who wanted more sorcerers. Soldiers, to be more exact. _Uncle_ wanted soldiers to fight for him, because _uncle_ wanted power, and he wanted all threats to his power gone. Eradicated. And Tenten was just another potential soldier, and Neji had to follow _uncle's_ orders.

Caring was never, _never_ involved. The term itself was laughed at.

Tenten snorted angrily. If anything had come out of her imprisonment, Neji decided it was that her temper was growing increasingly shorter. And that did nothing in his favor.

"Okay then. That just makes _so_ much sense, doesn't it? You don't care about what happens to me; it doesn't matter to you if I answer yes or no, and yet you're still here, pestering me to join your little cult. I've had enough of this."

"You don't still think it's me who's behind this, do you? Like I said, _I_ could care less about you. I'm under an order to make you agree to join us, and until you do, you will face endless days and nights in confinement."

"Why don't you just kill me now? I'm sure that's what'll happen in the end anyway. Your master will get too annoyed with me, and just have me killed. Why don't you just kill me now? It'll take care of things faster," Tenten said, and Neji noted that she seemed to be daring him to take the bait.

"I see that the dark _has_ affected you after all: it's affected your logic. Don't play the fool, Tenten. You're just making things worse for yourself," he scoffed.

"But _you_ don't care about that, you just care about what's going to happen to you if you can't complete your orders. Hah! I get it now!" Tenten laughed in crazed excitement. "You don't care if _I _get punished. You care if _you_ do. Not all high-and-mighty now, are we?"

"Don't make assumptions like that," Neji said sharply, scowl growing as Tenten leered back at him in triumph.

"I'll do exactly as I please. Now, I think you've stayed long enough for my answer to sink in. So leave."

Neji gnashed his teeth, irritated at having been dismissed so lightly, but he recognized his defeat. Tenten just would not give in. But he wasn't worried yet.

"How much longer can you put up with the dark, Tenten?" Neji asked with a taunting edge to his voice as he stepped out of the cell.

"Go to hell," Tenten spat scathingly, and Neji began to close the door. She broke eye contact with him, and as the pillar of light grew smaller on her form, he was certain he saw her bite her lip in a mixture of relief and…something else. He couldn't quite place it, but he was sure that he had seen something breaking behind her eyes. But then the door was closed and he was faced with its dark iron barrier.

* * *

Neji went to see her the next night, as she had expected. But he was earlier than usual.

She was being herded back to her cell after a routine trip to the bathrooms, about a half hour before dinner would be delivered. She was third from the end of the line of prisoners, behind a tall, balding old man and in front of a frail looking young lady. Her hands were tied to the rope that kept the prisoners in line; the rough twine always left red scratches. She had her eyes on the ground.

Then she heard the guard greet someone. "Good evening, sir," he said politely, though the tone of his voice made it clear that he was talking to someone of a higher rank than him.

Tenten raised her head to see who he was addressing, and then her eyes landed on Neji, who bowed his head respectfully. She felt her face morph into a scowl, and she stared determinedly back at the ground as she passed Neji by.

She wasn't surprised when he followed her inside her cell after she had been let free of the ropes. He closed the door but opened the window, probably not wanting any potential fuss Tenten made to be overheard by those still outside in the hall. But Tenten merely slid down the wall onto the ground by the bed, her head lolling to the side and her eyes closed. She knew his precautions were for naught.

"You look worse today," Neji said matter-of-factly after a minute's silence, which received him a frown in return, though Tenten didn't open her eyes.

"I bet I do."

"You don't mind?" he asked. She had the feeling that he was inspecting her.

"Well, what exactly can I do about it? No, never mind, don't even answer."

It was quiet for a second longer, and then she heard Neji sigh loudly and place a tray on the ground. Tenten tipped her head forward and opened her eyes to send him a questioning look.

"How much longer do you expect to last in here, Tenten?" Neji asked tiredly, and slid the tray over to her.

Tenten shrugged her shoulders and pushed her hair out of her face before raising a spoonful of plain rice to her mouth. "Not very long," she said, and placed the spoon in her mouth. She chewed slowly, and when she swallowed it took some effort.

She was sure Neji noticed. His eyes narrowed slightly, his forehead pinched.

He seemed puzzled. "And that doesn't worry you at all?"

Tenten laughed quietly, but it was an empty sound, not at all joyful. She let the spoon drop onto her tray with a faint clatter, and she fixed Neji with a steady gaze. When she answered, her eyes were as hollow as her voice.

"I don't even know anymore. Ever since last night…" her voice trailed off and she lowered her gaze, and her eyes widened in surprise when she saw that she was clutching her arms so tightly that she had drawn blood. She let go quickly, but the little pinpricks of red soon threatened to spill tiny rivers down her arms. "Oh jeez," she muttered as she dabbed at the cuts with her shirt, staining the dirty fabric with pebbles of crimson.

"What do you mean, last night?" Neji asked slowly, eyeing her arms with a bemused expression. He was thinking, she could tell. About what, she did not know. But she had grown used to that.

"Oh, nothing…nothing really... It was just a dream." Tenten huffed in annoyance and licked her finger before wiping it over a smear of blood. "Do you have anything I can put on these? I'd rather not have blood all over my arms."

"I'll have someone bring bandages later," Neji said dismissively, and pressed on, "What kind of dream. Tell me about it."

Too preoccupied with inspecting her arms, Tenten didn't think much of Neji's request. "Well, in my dream I was just sitting in here with my eyes closed thinking about my past…stuff like that. It was one of those dreams when you feel heavy, like if you tried to do something you couldn't. Even lifting a finger would take too much effort. So I decided to just think.

"And then I heard some people walking down the hall, and then once the sound got close, it stopped. And then all of a sudden the door opened, and there were these three people standing there, looking down at me…" She looked up at Neji, words slowing. "Why do you care? It was just a dream, nothing important."

"Just…I want to know, tell me," Neji said.

Tenten raised her eyebrows at the hasty request. "It's not important, it's just –"

"Tell me," Neji ordered bluntly, and Tenten winced at the sudden forcefulness of his voice, but she didn't snap back.

"Okay, okay, fine… Well…one of them came in first, and I saw a needle in his hand, but when I tried to back away everything suddenly felt even stranger." She glanced up. Neji gave her a look that told her to continue, and she closed her eyes as she did so. "It was…kind of like my head felt three sizes too big, and I wasn't coordinated, so when I tried to stand and back up the world seemed to tilt and a lost my balance, but when I hit the ground I couldn't feel much of anything. Well, I guess that makes sense though, being a dream and all."

"Is that all that happened?"

Tenten shook her head. "Next thing I knew, I was being lifted off the ground by my arms. There was one guy on each side of me, and there was something cold on the back of my neck."

She clenched her teeth and rubbed a hand against her neck roughly, the ominous glint of the syringe flashing through her mind. She suppressed a shudder and continued, though her hands were now clammy.

"When I figured out that it was the third guy pressing a needle into my neck, I tried to scream, but I couldn't make any sound…" she trailed off, biting her lip. She finished quietly, almost unsurely. "I think that's when I woke up, because I don't remember anything else…"

Her fingers absently skimmed over the skin on her arms, carefully avoiding the red cuts which had stopped spilling over. Her gaze was distracted, directed towards something to Neji's left, though her eyes were glazed over unseeingly.

"I have to go," Neji announced suddenly, and Tenten's eyes snapped back to him quickly.

She saw it again. Something was bothering him, or maybe just irritating him, but whatever it was, his mind was preoccupied. He hadn't even brought up the topic of the Drones and his demand.

"Oh…okay."

He stood silently, not looking at her. He latched shut the window and opened the door roughly. "I'll send someone with bandages for your arms," he announced just before he shut the door after him without a backward glance.

Tenten stared into the darkness, at the place where the door was, and she gave her arms a light squeeze. She wished she could erase the image of the glinting needle from her head.


	6. Disintegrate

**A/N:** And now the super-intense editing is done! For those of you who are new readers that didn't read the first version of this story, thanks for reading this one! I really hope you're all enjoying it.

* * *

**Let the Last Tear Fall **

_6. Disintegrate_

"You injected her. Why?" Neji asked firmly, eyes fixed on a particular place in the darkness.

The distinct sound of fabric – clothing – rustling was heard as the shadowed figure sat up straighter, before an amused voice answered back. "Now, now, Neji, that's not how you greet your elders."

Neji scowled, not one to enjoy being addressed like a child. In a forced voice he said, "I apologize for my rudeness. Good evening, uncle."

"Good evening, Neji. And how goes your mission…of sorts? Haven't you had enough time to play with her mind? You should have been able to have her agree to my request by now." Straight to the point, as always.

Neji knew that had been coming, and he felt slightly uneasy under his uncle's eyes; though he couldn't see them – the darkness seemed so much thicker than last time – he knew _they_ could see _him_ standing in the half-light cast by the flickering torch on the wall. And his uncle's tone had been displeased. Pulling his face into a blank expression, Neji answered.

"She's stubborn, more so than anyone I've had to deal with before. But I can tell that she's weakening, dramatically. She doesn't seem to have enough strength to stand up anymore, and she always looks tired."

"So you are saying that you are confident that she will give in soon," his uncle stated matter-of-factly.

"Yes, but-"

"Good. You may go now."

Neji furrowed his eyebrows bitterly and cleared his throat. "You still haven't allowed me to discuss why _I_ came to see _you_ in the first place."

"Oh? Well, it seems like I don't have the time for –"

"Uncle Hiashi," Neji cut him off in a raised voice that echoed off the high ceiling. He pretended not to feel the uneasy twist of his stomach when he heard how much his voice had resembled a bark. He knew he had just broken one of the unwritten rules: _never_ oppose Hiashi in any way, unless you have a death wish, or a wish full of pain to say the least.

A shocked silence was the only response Neji got. The tension was thick, but he knew it was probably the only chance he would get, so he forged on.

"What did you inject her with?" he asked, already knowing the answer but still hoping that another would be given.

He had figured it out after hearing her dream and reflecting on her circumstances. Or rather, what she thought had been a dream.

"DB02-X."

Neji's jaw twitched, but he said coolly, "That's the same one you injected Hinata with."

"Yes, I am well aware of that," Hiashi responded just as calmly, and Neji clenched his fists in bitter frustration.

"It _killed_ her."

"…And? You don't seem to be telling me anything I don't already know. If you came merely to discuss the past –"

"You killed your own daughter with that injection. How can you act so indifferent about it?"

Hiashi sighed. "Because she failed me, therefore, she deserved, and deserves, no honor for her failure." Neji exhaled sharply, hands still clenching in anger as he displayed some rarely-seen emotion. "Now Neji, why do you seem to be so passionate about this? Is it because you actually _cared_ for your younger cousin?" Hiashi asked scornfully.

Neji could easily imagine the disgusting sneer on his face, taunting him like.

He wasn't about to admit that Hinata had once been the only thing remotely close to a friend he had. The only person he didn't feel like he had to put on a mask of superiority around. The only person who really understood what it was like to be him and to be controlled by his tyrant of an uncle. But then again, he supposed that she had it even worse than him; so much more was expected of her. So much that shy, compassionate, friendly little Hinata just could not bring herself to do.

She couldn't be a killer, no matter how monstrous the Drones were. She had refused, just like Tenten had.

So Neji's uncle had decided to genetically modify her with an injection: DB02-X. It was meant to make her stronger, make her powers stronger; she was a sorceress after all, and not half bad at that. She was just a _kind_ one, which was the problem that Hiashi had been determined to eradicate.

Something in the injection – Neji himself wasn't an expert on it – was supposed to alter her brain in a way to make her less afraid about the results of using sorcery, such as harming innocent people and spilling blood.

But she hadn't been able to handle the injection. At first it had weakened her muscles, making her frail, prone to bruising and injuries, and slowly making it so that she couldn't stand or move for more that a few minutes. She fought, that much was obvious. She had had a warrior's gleam in her eyes as she rested in bed for a month, but then one day she was gone. It was as if the candle had just flickered and died in a mere instant, and Hinata Hyuuga was suddenly a name of the past that wasn't honored, told to be forgotten.

But Neji wouldn't admit that her death had caused a little prick of pain in what he assumed was his heart, the thing walled with steel and razor wire, immune to such petty things like meaningful emotion. Apart from very, _very_ few exceptions.

A frosty chuckle broke Neji out of his thoughts, and he was not only angry at his uncle but at himself as well for letting himself _remember_. Remember something that made him feel. "No, I never cared for her," he lied in a vicious voice.

"Then what," inquired Hiashi, impatience now evident in the sharpness of his words, "might the problem be?"

"If that injection killed Hinata, then there is a large chance that it will also kill Tenten –"

"Tenten? You have gotten close enough to her to call her by her name?"

"It is just a name," Neji said coldly. "It doesn't mean anything if I know her name or not."

Hiashi was silent, and Neji took it as an invitation to continue. "What if you kill her?"

"It won't kill her."

"How do you know? You gave it to Hinata when she was completely healthy, and she still couldn't handle it." He wasn't quite sure why, but his voice was getting louder despite his efforts to remain calm.

"She was healthy, but she was weak," Hiashi spat, and Neji knew very well what he meant.

"Tenten's already half-dead," he growled. "She's barely alive, and you think that this shot isn't going to kill her?"

"You have even said yourself," Hiashi countered with a similar snarl, speaking slowly so as to let each word sink in, "she has been resilient thus far, I believe that she will be a better specimen than my daughter was."

"Specimen. They're specimens now?"

"Why does this bother you?" Neji was sure that Hiashi was raising a fine, dark eyebrow and bearing pearly teeth in a sly grin. He was amused by Neji's little slip up.

"It doesn't, I was merely wondering," Neji said, forcing his voice to stay low and indifferent. Mild apathy, it was his only preset emotion, and thus it was no emotion at all to him. It was his mask.

"Hm? Then how do you explain your outburst?"

"I…" Really, how did he? He voiced the only plausible emotion that came to mind. "I'm sorry, uncle. I just didn't want my efforts to recruit her to end in merely her death. Then it would have been a waste of time from the beginning. Please forgive me, I was out of line."

Hiashi chuckled without amusement. The hollow sound filled Neji's ears with screams of _Wouldn't that be a nice story, if it were true._ Neji kept his expression blank, unaffected.

Once the sound died down and the room was once again filled with only the noise of crackling flames, Hiashi dismissed Neji with a curt, "Your efforts will not be futile, I can promise you that. Now, please, do not waste any more time here when you could be with your new little…friend." His voice was silky smooth, that of a cunning fox with misleading, entrancing eyes and sharp, deadly blades for teeth. He was laughing, for real this time, without even having to force his vocal cords to do so.

Neji opened his mouth to shoot back a bitter response, but caught himself and closed his mouth roughly, gnashing his teeth together. "Yes, uncle."

He bowed, letting his long hair fall over his shoulders and hide his face from view, and once he straightened he immediately turned towards the door, no longer hiding the lines of fury between his brows. He wrenched open the door with more force than necessary and was already halfway down the hall when he heard it _clang_ shut behind him.

Only once he was far away from that dreaded room did he let himself lean into an earthy wall and throw his head back in a strangled snarl. He didn't mind the jagged rocks digging into his back or the fact that his spotless white shirt was most likely covered with dirt. He slammed a fist into the wall, enjoying the muffled thud that came with the impact as well as the feeling of just _hitting_ something.

_Why did I let myself get so worked up? What the hell was I thinking?_

He cursed his stupidity and his insolence, his mistake. What had happened to the mask? Why had he let it slip, even if just for a moment? Was it because of that strange little feeling that he associated with Hinata's death – no, murder – and the DB02-X? Was it because he felt resentment towards Hiashi for killing her? Was it because he resented the injection? Did he find it inhumane? Sure, forcing people to join his uncle's _cause_ wasn't exactly saint-like, but modifying their brains and feelings and consciousness was a whole other matter completely.

Were these the reasons for his behavior, for his loss of control? For a second he recognized something…dread. He was dreading the use of the DB02-X because it brought back memories of someone who almost understood him who died because of it?

Neji immediately pushed this question out of his thoughts. It was stupid, anyway. Hinata was the closest thing to, but was definitely _not_, a friend. Other people's well being was none of his concern.

But still, with all that declared unimportant, there was nothing concrete to explain Neji's anger, so he decided that it was because of his uncle. His controlling, manipulative, godforsaken uncle who twisted people's words into venomous lies and used them against them. The almighty, untouchable, self-proclaimed near-god, spewing orders and requests that could not be denied and yet sometimes could not even be _done_, whilst all the while he sat in his room on his throne in a blanket of shadow.

"Bastard," Neji hissed sharply, hitting the wall again. Once more, he felt that little bubble of pleasure, of fulfillment, in his gut at his harsh words. It was then that Neji realized that although he did not like being angry, he enjoyed immensely the feeling of raging. A wicked grin split through his fuming expression and he pushed himself off of the wall. He pulled a few strands of dark hair out of his eyes before walking off quite calmly, placing his hands in his pockets and turning down an adjoining hallway.

* * *

When Neji opened the door to Tenten's room that night, he was very surprised to find her lying on her stomach on top of her meagerly blanketed bed. Her hair was strewn messily over the gray, moth-eaten pillow and sheets, her face towards the cold wall. One arm hung limp over the side of the bed, fingers just brushing the floor and casting elongated shadows in the half-light.

Neji wondered for a moment why she had abandoned her spot on the ground, but then threw away the thought as Tenten turned her head over and greeted him with tired eyes.

"I'm not hungry," she said in a gravely voice.

"Yes, well, you will be later." Neji put the tray down in Tenten's usual corner next to the bed and waited for her response.

"I don't feel good."

He straightened up and looked at her, face blank but mind reeling. So it had already started taking effect. In a flat voice he asked, "What's wrong?"

"I don't feel good," Tenten repeated, her words almost a croak. "I really don't feel good." She closed her eyes with a small grimace and Neji regarded her in silence, noting the light glisten of sweat on her brow. She cracked open her mouth and took a few slow breaths before speaking again. "Did you poison my food?"

"No."

She didn't answer.

"I don't suppose that this would be the best time to talk to you about –"

"No. It wouldn't."

Neji could imagine his uncle's scolding. _"You aren't trying hard enough, Neji,"_ Hiashi would say in disappointment. Neji glowered at the image of his uncle's face swimming around in his head, impatience written across his haughty features.

_How is this supposed to make it easier for me, anyway? _How _can he expect me to do this; to convince her to join his cause when she's only getting weaker and sicker the longer she stays here?_

And why inject _her_, of all people? Hinata was at least a little understandable, but Tenten? Why Tenten? She couldn't _do_ anything, she didn't _know_ anything. She was helpless, and pretty much worthless. The more he tried to understand, the more he confused himself.

He massaged his temples and let a heavy breath out of his nose, welcoming the darkness that his closed eyelids provided. He wished that his uncle could be pleasant enough to give him a vacation, and then he chuckled at the very notion. Opening his eyes slowly, he announced, "I'm going," and headed towards the door, receiving no complaints from Tenten, who still hadn't opened her eyes.

He grasped the cool metal and cast her one last glance, during which she laughed – or attempted to, though it quickly turned into a rattling cough – and whispered so quietly that he wasn't exactly sure if he heard her correctly or not.

"You're giving up so easily now."

Startled, he closed the door with an abrupt snap, not allowing himself to dwell on her words or try to figure out what it was she might have been implying, if anything.

* * *

The next evening Neji was in a marginally better mood, not having been called in for another meeting with his _dear _uncle. He had spent most of the morning in his room – which was not only large, but the bed had a comfortable mattress and the pillows and sheets were not moth-eaten or a dingy gray color – reading, and had only spent a brief half an hour out at lunch before once again retreating to his room until dinner time.

When he opened Tenten's door he was not at all surprised to find her dead-looking on her bed again, though he made sure that he could see her torso rising and falling as a sign that she was breathing. She looked exactly as she had the day before, on her stomach with her head turned away, and she was the first to speak again.

"Neji?" She hadn't turned her head over this time.

"Yes."

"I…" Her hand, which was lying next to her head, clenched into the slightly disheveled sheets. "I really don't feel good."

"What's wrong?" Neji asked without enthusiasm, towering over her and blanketing her form in shadow as he stood next to the bed. It was almost humorous how their discussion mirrored the one from the previous night immaculately, so far.

Tenten let out a groan. "I'm so sore. I just hurt…all over." She let go of the sheets and then fisted her hand into them again. "And I feel…really sick."

"What kind of sick?"

Tenten shifted her face so that it was engulfed by her pillow, and after a pause she pushed herself to her knees. Her arms shook visibly from the ache in her muscles and her tangled hair fell over her face, blocking any expression, but Neji heard the hiss she wasn't able to bite back. Once she was sitting on her feet, she swallowed forcefully and turned her face to meet Neji's eyes. Her own eyes were hollow looking, all life slowly fading away, leaving dull, muddy orbs behind.

"I think –"

She stifled a cough and then swallowed again with difficulty, eyebrows furrowing slightly. "I think I'm going to throw up. Bring me to the bathroom, please," she pleaded, splaying a hand across her chest, as though she could hold back whatever was threatening to rise up this way.

Neji put down the tray of food but held onto the glass of water. "Fine. Hurry up."

Tenten didn't wait for him to speak twice before unfolding her legs and placing her feet on the ground, raising herself up to her full height while biting her lips to keep back any sound of protest at her soreness. She passed Neji by briskly and headed down the hall.

"Hey, don't go too far ahead!" Neji called after her, and he closed her cell door with a grumble before catching up to her with his long strides. "Left at the end of the hall –"

"I know," Tenten cut him off sourly, attempting to keep herself a few paces ahead of him. After turning the corner, she took an ungraceful shuffle and tripped over her feet. Neji reached out and grabbed her arm purely out of reflex, jerking her back so that she wouldn't fall, but in the process sloshed the water around in the glass he was holding so that a fair amount splashed onto his front.

"You should be careful," he told her through clenched teeth, not at all sounding like he was concerned for her wellbeing. "You aren't used to walking around so fast and your muscles won't be able to support you."

She tugged her arm out of his grasp and shuffled along ahead once more, leaving him to drag a hand over the front of his shirt and then shake the water off of his fingers. With a frustrated sigh, he began following after her again.

They had made it about halfway down the corridor before Tenten doubled over, clutching her stomach and coughing weakly. He heard her mutter, "Oh god," and then she made an uncoordinated dash for a door towards the end of the hall.

When Neji reached the door and pushed it open, he was met with the sound of retching and heaving coughs, and found Tenten kneeling before a toilet in an unlocked stall. When she was able to take a breath after a few minutes, he tapped her on the shoulder and handed her the half-full glass of water.

"So you can rinse out your mouth. And try to drink some also. It will be better to throw up water than nothing."

She grabbed the glass and took a swig, swishing it around her mouth and spitting it into the toilet bowl without grace. She pushed on the flusher, and as the foul water spun down the drain she let herself lean back onto the wall of the stall, one hand on her forehead.

"I feel like crap."

Neji refrained from telling her that she looked it as well, although her voice didn't seem quite as strained now that she had emptied whatever had been in her stomach.

"Neji?"

Her voice was still small but he could tell that she was still trying to make it sound strong. She would never let herself give up without a fight.

"Yes."

"My dream, was it –"

But she wasn't allowed to finish. A shrill buzz sounded from right outside the bathroom door, causing her to jump and place a hand over her heart in surprise. The sound receded and then started up once more, repeating its cycle: loud and shrill, fading into something almost bearable to listen to, silence, and then earsplitting once more.

The two were silent, frozen in place. It was Neji who was the first to react.

"Get up," he ordered after the initial numb shock had worn off, his instincts kicking in. He had a feeling that he knew where her question would have gone, but this was not the time to hear it. Tenten looked at him with wide eyes full of inquiry.

"Why?" she asked slowly, but the alarm drowned out her voice. Neji had understood her question nevertheless, reading it on her lips.

"Just get up," he repeated, impatience creeping into his raised voice as he grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet none too gently. Her knees buckled and she grabbed onto his arm to steady herself. The glass fell to the ground and shattered, sending jagged shards and cool water over the grimy tile floor, though they went unnoticed.

"Neji, what's going on? What is it?" Neji was already pulling her out of the stall and towards the bathroom door. She struggled against his grasp. "Neji!"

He twisted his hand around and grabbed hold of her slender wrist, then used his strength to push her against the wall next to the sinks. She gasped in pain when her back slammed into the unyielding surface, and was about to shout out a protest, but Neji covered her mouth with one of his hands and gave her a meaningful look. She instantly stiffened and angled her eyebrows menacingly, but she did not struggle.

It took Neji a second to realize the familiarity of their position.

The alarm resounded in the small room, attacking their eardrums and causing Tenten to wince. Neji raised his free hand and aimed his palm towards the bathroom door, mind in deep concentration but eyes still boring into the girl's pinned in front of him. The alarm outside was instantly quieted, though the eerie whine of those in the distance still rose and fell, introducing a daunting air to the scene.

He lowered his hand to his side slowly, not breaking his gaze from Tenten's, who seemed to be trying to decide if she should be glaring at him or looking simply at him questioningly. Content that at least she wouldn't run, Neji dropped his other hand as well. Tenten made a show of wiping the back of her hand over her lips in disgust, but Neji ignored her immaturity and steeled himself mentally for what he was about to tell her.

"Tenten, I need you to listen to me for the next two minutes. I don't care what you do after that; I don't care what you think or what you say, I just need you to listen. Please."

Her eyebrows rose at the kind word of request and the sharp line of her lips went slack, all signs of aggravation erased and replaced with trepidation. She nodded hastily, quieted by his strange behavior. Neji ran his hands over his face before meeting her eyes again.

There was an uncomfortable feeling deep in his gut, one he was not at all used to. He knew that the next words to come out of his mouth would classify him as doing the unthinkable and going against his uncle's strict orders, but for some reason he also knew that he wouldn't be able to get rid of the tumultuous thoughts plaguing his mind without doing so.


	7. Sinking

**A/N: **Thank you readers, reviewers, favoriters, alerters. All you guys. Big thanks. Only after finishing this chap did i realize that it's all one big scene. And then i didn't think i could break it up into multiple ones, so i left it. It's rather long... Hope you enjoy!

* * *

**Let the Last Tear Fall**

_7. Sinking_

"Neji, what's happening?" Tenten asked cautiously, back stiff and straight against the wall. She hated to admit it, but she was afraid. She knew something was wrong because of the sound of alarms, she just didn't know what.

And to make matters worse, Neji looked extremely troubled, which was not normal at all. His pale eyes were wider than usual, and they had a more hectic gleam in them. And he had _pleaded_ with her to listen. Neji never pleaded, he demanded.

"…What's wrong?" she asked, reaching a hand out but immediately freezing when she realized what she was doing. Her arm fell limp to her side again. She was confused, he was making it worse, and she had no idea what to do. "Neji?" she tried again.

He opened his mouth and said slowly, "I shouldn't tell you this." She could see in his eyes how true the words were.

"What –"

"They're going to kill you."

A small chill ran down her spine, but she said in the calmest voice she could muster, "But we already knew that, right? With my disobedience and –"

"No. Listen to me."

Tenten shut her mouth at his forceful voice, teeth clamped together in an invitation for him to continue.

"Your dream –"

"It was real, wasn't it?" she asked suddenly. Neji looked surprised for a moment, but then nodded. The truth didn't surprise Tenten as much as she expected it to, and she found herself easily grasping the idea of some unnamed men pushing a needle into the back of her neck while she was off guard. "Okay, so what was the needle for?" She was having trouble keeping her voice even.

"It's… supposed to modify the way you think. And act. And feel."

Tenten swallowed. "Oh. I see." What a lie. "And what exactly does that –"

"My uncle wants to control you and force you to become one of his soldiers, and with the injection given to you it's supposed to make doing that a lot easier. It supposedly allows him to make his own will your own, since you will have forgotten your own values and…such."

The words flew out of Neji's mouth quickly, and a tense silence stretched out afterwards as Tenten's brain struggled to catch up to the news she was hearing. Her mouth was suddenly very dry; she wished that she had not dropped the glass of water on the floor only minutes before. She opened her mouth to respond, but nothing seemed appropriate to say. She tried to swallow, but her throat was like sandpaper. Finally, the only thing that came to mind passed through her lips, very quietly.

"But, I thought you said they were going to kill me."

"Well, it's not for certain." A brief glimmer of hope sparked in her gut, but Neji hardened his gaze. "But, there is a good chance that you won't be able to handle the injection. It has only been used once before, and the last recipient died not long after."

The hope was crushed, and despair was left. Dying suddenly seemed a lot more frightening to Tenten, who had up until then asked Neji to kill her already, since there was no way she would help his uncle. But she didn't feel ready to give up her life just yet.

A stunned "Oh," escaped her lips. She begged Neji with her eyes to tell her that he was kidding, just playing a cruel joke on her. She wouldn't be surprised if that were the case. But the only answer she got was silent, stoic, and barely counting as remorse. His face was as composed as ever, most likely because he had gotten the weight off of his chest. Why that was so important to him, she couldn't fathom.

Something inside her broke then, and she brought her hands up to her head, clenching her fingers in her wild hair. "Oh god, I'm going to die. I don't want to die, I'm not ready. I'm not… I'm… Please, no."

The tears were already trickling down her cheeks, in clear view of Neji, but she paid him no attention. Her knees buckled and gave away, and her back slid down the cold wall until she landed on the floor, knees bent up close to her chest. She couldn't see past the blurring tears clouding her vision, it was all a confusing jumble of unfriendly colors.

"Tenten!" Neji's alarmed voice barely registered in her mind, and she shut her eyes tight, sending a flood of hot liquid down her face.

"No… Mom! Dad! Please, help me. Don't let me die, not here. Not in _this_ place, not alone. Please. Please... Please…" Her voice died into a whisper.

"Damn, you're in shock. Tenten, get a hold of yourself, this is not the time for your emotions to get in the way like this!"

"Go away! Leave me alone! This is all your fault. You killed me! I'm going to die because of you…you…you monster!"

"Tenten!"

"_Shut up!_" Her cry surprised even her and she silenced for a half-second, but then her hold on her hair tightened and choked sobs racked her throat and she bowed her head under the emotional trauma.

She would die. She didn't even know how or when, didn't know if it would be painful or slow or filled with despair. She just knew that there was nothing she could do to stop it.

She was too young to die. Her life had been too short. There were so many things she hadn't done: she had never bought a hammock and looked up at the stars from atop it without any fears, had never felt the soft sand and smelled the salty air of the ocean, had never mastered the shepard's pie recipe her foster mother had taught her, had never fallen in love…

"Tenten!"

Her arms were jerked away from her face and the force pulled her forward onto her knees, sobs and thoughts silenced in shock. Her watery eyes were round and wide, fearful, as Neji looked down at her with irritation etched into his features. All she could do was blink – vocal cords dead – back at him, acutely aware of the iron grip he had on both of her wrists.

Her tears seemed to have disturbed him, and he quickly let go of her arms and looked to the side – in disgust she assumed. But still, he spoke to her again, though his words were clipped and rough.

"The entrance will be unguarded, all prisoners locked in their cells, and all guards towards the back halls."

She didn't understand. She didn't care for the words coming from his mouth and didn't know what they meant. She just stared at his face as he avoided hers.

"Would you like to know why that is?" Neji asked, evidently aware of her confusion. His voice was prodding; he would tell her no matter what her response was.

"Sure." It came out as nothing more than a whisper, because she didn't really care. Her brown eyes traveled down to the floor, head bowing and hair veiling patches of her face.

"Because that's where the Drones are."

Her head snapped up immediately. "What?"

Neji looked back at her. She couldn't read what was in his eyes. "That's where uncle keeps the ones that are… on his side. In the deepest rooms at the end of the farthest halls."

Tenten's hands clenched involuntarily. "So close…"

"The alarm is because something has happened with them. Most likely they have broken out of their rooms and are making a scene. It's nothing new. They are impulsive and take little into consideration before actually doing anything." He rubbed his forehead roughly. "And because of this they are dangerous and destructive, which is why all guards have to make sure that nothing gets too out of hand. There have been many casualties in situations like this in the past."

Tenten's heart skipped a beat, and then a cold prickle trickled down her spine. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Think about it," Neji said coldly, and then bent down and pulled her up by her elbows. "Hurry up. I'm supposed to already be with the rest of the guards."

He turned his back on her and headed for the bathroom door. Shaken, Tenten followed on unsure feet, making sure to always stay a few steps behind as they traveled through the echoing halls, loud with the whine of alarms. Neji came to a sudden halt when they reached an especially wide hall – the main hall that the others branched out of.

"I will go right to join the others. I'll be leaving you here."

Tenten stared at his back, expression something between shock and confusion as she tried to decide whether or not to believe the conclusion that had dawned on her as they had been walking.

"Are you saying…what do you mean?" she stammered just as a nearby alarm rose to its highest pitch. She wondered if Neji heard her.

She heard his low chuckle and saw his shoulders bounce briefly. A torch crackled, warping the arrangement of orange light and gray shadow strewn across the back of his white shirt. His voice was tinged with his laughter when he spoke.

"It is pretty obvious, I'd say. If you can't figure it out, then it seems that I have overestimated you." His voice suddenly turned very serious, and he took a few steps to the right before pausing again. "Goodbye, Tenten. I hope that we do not cross paths in the future."

"Wait!"

Neji stopped again and let out a loud breath of air. He turned halfway around and fixed Tenten's wild stare with his own impassive one, white eyes like curtains, nothing showing around them.

"What?" And now his voice was wary, and Tenten opened her mouth just enough to take a few short, hectic breaths.

"What do I do now?" she asked, and found her tone pleading. "What am I supposed to do? You know, don't you? Tell me what I'm supposed to do."

Neji's expression did not waver as he held her gaze for an excruciatingly long minute. Tenten felt her mind racing and her heart hammering away in anxiety, but she bit her tongue and didn't make a sound as she stared back.

Finally, he sighed again. "You decide for yourself." Though his voice was smooth, it came out like an order, and then he added under his breath as he turned to walk away once more, "That didn't used to be such a problem for you to do."

Tenten didn't have anything to say to that. She was rooted to the spot, watching his form shrink as he got farther away. The alarms were mere background noise now, and the whirring of her brain was suddenly quiet. Her head was filled with a deafening silence.

_Prisoners in cells. Drones at the end of the hall. All guards fighting them off. Main hall empty. _

It was like a punch to the gut, when the pieces of the puzzle finally flew together and the fuzzy thoughts at the edge of her brain suddenly became clear and blinding. Her heart jumped into her throat and she forgot how to breathe. The gears in her mind started spinning overtime.

_Main hall empty. _

She gasped and remembered that oxygen was important, and took in several rattling lungfuls of air.

_Guards at the end of the hall, Drones at the end of the hall. _

Her hands were clammy; she clenched them into shaking fists. It was too good to be _true_.

_Prisoners in cells._

When she realized that her eyes were out of focus, she quickly blinked and squinted down the main hall to her right. She couldn't even see Neji anymore. The alarms came back full force, their moans suddenly much more menacing, and she turned her head to the left –

_Main hall empty._

– and _ran_. Her feet slapped the hard ground violently, soles slowly becoming numb despite the rubber shielding them, and her arms pumped fervently at her sides. She wasn't aware of her lungs burning or her muscles screaming in protest. All she could feel were her feet and the adrenaline pulsing through every single one of her veins.

Her hair was wild and untamed behind her, and her eyes were narrowed and hardened in determination. The alarms seemed to be screaming at her, telling her to stop, warning of her escape. She ran faster. The orange-tinted dirt walls were nothing but a blur to her, the dark hallways stretching away to the right and left invisible.

But then she heard a roar, and her blood ran cold. She almost tripped as her feet stopped for a split second before running faster. The roar got louder, and terrifying images of Drones and unnamed, ferocious monsters with hideous fangs and treacherous talons invaded Tenten's mind, but she couldn't look over her shoulder to see what was on her tail.

The alarms were gone, the hollering of the beasts much louder, which meant that she would be caught at any time. There was a light ahead, not bright, but vivid enough for Tenten to know that it came from something besides the dirt cavern she was in.

She couldn't feel her feet anymore, and was afraid that if she stopped running she wouldn't know how to support herself, so she sprinted on. The howls multiplied and grew louder still. They sounded like they came from all around her, and she could imagine monsters lurking around every branching hall, ready to pounce and tear her to tiny, bloody shreds.

She was through the light, and then she fell.

Icy water closed in on her from all sides, and her head barely broke the surface in time for her to take a rattling gasp. She had a half a second to figure out where the roaring was coming from before her head bobbed under the water again, her legs utterly exhausted.

A waterfall. Of all the possible explanations for the monstrous noises, it just had to be a waterfall.

Tenten was disoriented and had trouble keeping her head above the water, but she knew that there was only one way out: through the fall. The spray assaulted her eyes and tried to fill her mouth, and she felt herself being pulled closer to the curtain of water, almost as if they were the two poles of different magnets.

All too soon she had been dragged under, the force of the pummeling water pushing her deeper into the dark depths. Her eyes were wide open but she couldn't see anything; it was all a single shade of black. She was vaguely aware of her arms and legs flailing to all sides as she tried to swim up, wherever up was. It felt like there was a one hundred ton blanket weighing her down and squeezing in on her.

Her lungs were about ready to burst, and her hair floated around her face like a net as she twisted around in the cold water, all her hope quickly seeping away as she prepared herself for the worst possible death.

Drowning.

A bubble of air escaped her mouth and the water rushed down her throat, choking her. She was shutting down, she could feel it. There was a light, much brighter than the one she had seen before. Death was just around the corner, and she was tired and not about to fight her fate. Her whole body was numb and unfeeling; the only pain came from the frigid water filling her lungs.

And then her back rammed into something bumpy and smooth. A bunch of somethings, she realized dimly, as the foreign objects rolled over her spine, obviously more than a single entity. The most amazing thing happened, however, when her face broke free of the water and she felt the air skim over her cheekbones.

Her eyes snapped open – she couldn't remember when they had closed – and a fountain of water erupted from her mouth, followed by heaving gasps and splutters as more water lapped gently by her ears.

There was green overhead. Green and blue and brown and white.

Trees and the sky.

_Daylight_.

Tenten turned her head to the side slightly, too exhausted to do much more, and saw the wooded forest stretch out into the distance. Her right hand clenched around one of the funny-feeling objects underneath her, and she sluggishly brought it up to her face with blue tinged fingers.

A stone. She was lying on countless stones that lined the bank of the… lake, as she assumed it was.

She tipped her heavy head to the other side and noted without much reaction that the waterfall was roaring away in front of what looked like a solid stone edge of a cliff that stood a good twenty feet away. It was strange… she remembered the roars to be much louder. And how had she gotten so far away?

She coughed weakly; a few dribbles of water trickled down the corners of her mouth. She was so tired.

The sound of pebbles mashing against pebbles caught her attention and she swiveled her eyes upwards. She could see a person – a young woman by the looks of it – running in her direction with a frenzied look on her face. Tenten wasn't sure why the girl's jade eyes were so wide; there wasn't anything exciting that she knew of anywhere nearby. Just a waterfall acting as a door that led to some twisted prison. That was all.

"Oh my god!" the girl stammered, falling to her knees at Tenten's head. "Are you okay? Miss?!"

She put a hand on Tenten's cheek and gasped at the temperature. Tenten thought that she had rather pretty hair… the color of cotton candy and cherry blossoms. Her mind flashed back to a happy summer day spent at the fair when she had been eight years old. The sun had been so warm and the air had smelled to sweet, and it had all been so relaxing…

"No, don't close your eyes! Kiba, come here, I found someone!"

Why was she being so loud? It annoyed Tenten; all she wanted was to sleep and dream of that happy innocence of her childhood, and yet this strange girl was screaming at the top of her lungs, which was very distracting and not at all soothing for someone who had just narrowly escaped drowning.

"Shit," she heard the girl curse, and then her voice reached a high pitch again. "Kiba! Kiba, where the hell are – oh my god, finally! Help me with her!"

It sounded like a muffled earthquake as a second person ran across the rocks to his frantic friend. "What the hell? Did you just find her like this?" a masculine voice asked, and was answered with a throaty confirmation.

"Damn, we have to bring her back, and fast." It was the male who spoke again, and he sounded like he was in a rush.

A large, warm hand closed around one of Tenten's – the one still holding onto the stone – and for some reason it made her feel so comfortable that she was finally able to slip into the beckoning darkness.


	8. Kiba

**A/N: **Done with the 8 loooooooong chaps of editing! Yessssssssss. I'm sure that you can figure this out, but Li is not Lee. It will make sense, really.

* * *

**Let the Last Tear Fall**

_8. Kiba_

There was something on her forehead, pressed to it with a gentle force. It was like it was barely there, but it was wet…and cold. She didn't like the feeling.

"Hey, I think she might be waking up."

She thought that she recognized that voice, while at the same time the speakers face kept slipping away from her. Her thoughts were too scattered, too shrouded in some swirling, nearly tangible darkness.

"Hm, I dunno. She's getting better, that's for sure, but I don't know if her body is ready to fully wake up yet."

It was a girl's voice this time, and the sound brought to her mind faint images of cherry blossoms and strawberry ice cream and the warm summer breeze that swept over her face when she was younger. When Li would bring her to the summer festival…

"I'm surprised she was able to hang on this long."

The girl's words were meaningless, Tenten didn't care for them. She wanted the hot sunshine and the soft grass and the hand-held pinwheels that used to bring a spark of joy to her once-upon-a-time lively, auburn eyes.

"Do you think she'll get better? You know, all the way?"

The thing on her head, which was now a tepid temperature, was lifted off and replaced with another one. Cold, wet, trickling off the side of her face…

"Seriously, Kiba, just look at her. She's healed astoundingly well, she'll be fine."

The winters were chilly; sometimes Li would take her on a morning walk through the fog if no rain was falling. They would both be bundled up in layer upon layer of thick, puffy jackets and boots that went up to their knees, over a few pairs of knee-high socks. And no matter what they did, Tenten's nose would always turn a bright red and her hands would be like icicles in her gloves and her toes would feel much the same, while the rest of her stayed nice and warm.

"She hasn't eaten for days."

There was a small playground in the park they walked in, and for some reason Tenten always enjoyed going there on foggy days when the sky wasn't visible but her breath was, grayish white against the pale gray that everything became in the winter. There were two swings and a wooden ladder that led up to a metal slide. The ground was covered in tanbark; somehow the pesky wood pellets always found their way into her shoes no matter how careful she was.

"At least she's swallowed some of the water we've tried to give her. There really isn't much else we _can_ do, though. We just have to hope…"

Sometimes, when she was swinging, a drop and then two more of rain would splatter against her cheek, and Li would call to her from the bench she always sat upon to read. Her voice would be filled with humor at the disgruntled look on Tenten's face. _"Come down, Tennie, before the rain decides to completely soak us. I promise you that you'll like _that_ even less!"_ Tenten remembered that day…

"Yeah…God, what happened to her, though?"

She had been so excited, swinging higher than ever before. The wind was refreshing against her face and smelled so crisp and clean, the sharp chill less intense due to her adrenaline. _Higher, higher, higher_. And then she had to get off and they had to head home, and Tenten was disappointed. Li noticed the unhappy frown on her face, and leaned down in front of her, poking her nose gently. _"Tell you what Tennie, when we get home, how about you and I make some cookies and hot chocolate? And then we'll start up the fireplace and watch a movie. How does that sound?" _

"I don't know, Kiba. I don't know…"

"_Can the hot chocolate have marshmallows in it?"_ she had asked, and received a nod in response. _"Okay, let's go! Hurry up, Li, I don't wanna get my gloves all wet!" _She had grabbed Li's gloved hand and began pulling her home, joyous laughter bubbling up from her throat as Li laughed behind her. The rain began falling, not hard but quick, the splatters on the concrete the only noise besides the voices of the little girl and her foster mother.

"C'mon Sakura, she's not waking up right now. Let's let her rest."

The memory faded slowly as two sets of footsteps reached Tenten's ears, walking away from her. A door shut softly from somewhere beyond her feet, and it was quiet. She blacked out again.

* * *

Her eyes shot open and she gasped, fists instantly clenching into the light fabric they were lying upon. White…white ceiling. Her eyes swiveled across the squares above her. _One, two, three, four…_ Too many to count.

She let her head fall to the side, groaning when her neck muscles protested weakly. Her head felt heavy, the edges of her vision cloudy and uncertain. She wasn't sure if she was fully conscious or not. She pinched her thigh, the pain registering after a few seconds, and she immediately let go and rubbed the sore spot.

Her mouth was dry; she needed water. Without thinking, she lifted one heavy leg and swung it over the side of the bed she was in. After a pause to regain her energy (she didn't know why the one motion had been so draining), she swung the other foot over the side as well. Slowly, she pushed herself to her feet, grabbing the rail on the bed for support.

There was a door on the far side of the mostly empty room. She stumbled across gracelessly and uncoordinatedly, numbly aware of the throbbing in her legs and body, and when she reached the door she grabbed the metal knob. With a twist and a click, the door opened easily, and then Tenten found herself having to make a very serious decision.

Right or left?

Which way led to water?

She looked down the hallway to the left, and then turned her head to the right. As she did so, a sharp pain throbbed from somewhere behind her eyes and her world spun.

She saw dirt walls, compact and dark and rich with the scent of minerals. Torches on the walls, beguiling light flickering through the shadows, cool air. She heard the footsteps echoing from around the corner at the end of the hall; they were coming! They knew she wasn't in her cell, they were coming, they-

"Hey! What are you doing out of bed?"

Someone came running towards her, and when the figure neared she was finally able to recognize the voice. It was the man from the lake, the second person that had come running up to her on the rocks.

"What are you doing?" he asked again when he reached her. He looked worried; his eyes had a wild gleam in them. "Are you okay?"

"I…where am I?" was all that Tenten could come up with.

"You're safe. Now come on, you look like you're gonna pass out any second now. You better sit down." He put a hand on her shoulder and steered her back into the plain room.

Safe. That was good enough of an answer for her. She felt safe with his warm hand on her shoulder, protective and sturdy.

"Sit." His voice broke through her thoughts and she let her knees buckle against the bed frame so that she could sit down on the mattress. The brown-haired man peered into her face, and Tenten stared back in a daze, since it was the first time she had actually seen him.

He had strange tattoos on his cheeks: a red fang on each, making his face look more defined. His eyes were a bronze color, intense in a way that was hard to describe; they looked very perceptive. He lifted a warm hand to her forehead and left the back of his palm there with a gentle pressure.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, and Tenten thought he sounded much like a doctor with the tone he used. When he spoke, she noticed that his two incisors were a bit more pronounced than the rest of his teeth. Maybe he was a vampire.

"Do you have water?" Tenten asked in a gravelly voice, and the man pulled his hand away.

"Yeah. Wait here, don't go anywhere. I'll be back in a minute."

She watched him leave without a word, and when the door clicked shut she looked around the room. There was a wooden chair painted white in the corner to the left of the bed, and a small, metal table next to it. Besides those two items, the room was completely bare.

She still had no idea where she was, but was not as alarmed by this as she should have been because of the strange sluggishness of her brain. She remembered blurred visions and feelings: ice-cold water surrounding her on all sides, stealing all feeling from her body; green eyes and pink hair floating above her as she lay on a bumpy surface; running from invisible monsters and towards raging waterfalls.

Minutes ticked by unnoticed, and Tenten sat still, her eyes gradually traveling down to gaze at her hands blankly. Slowly, she twined her fingers together, palms flat against each other, and was surprised at how warm they felt. She straightened out her fingers and marveled at them: her fingernails were a few centimeters long, longer than they normally grew, but chipped and split. There was a small scab on her index finger knuckle of her left hand; she had no idea what it was from.

She trailed her left hand down her right palm, fingers brushing over the crease marks and eventually down her wrists, over blue veins and pronounced tendons to the bend at her elbow. From there she brought a single finger up to her shoulder, this time pushing more forcefully into her flesh, watching as the skin stretched and then loosened in the process. There was a freckle on her shoulder; she had never noticed it before.

The doorknob rattled and Tenten jumped, hands flying down to her lap to clasp together for no particular reason. Her palms were still very warm against each other, warmer than she thought they should have been.

She watched the man approach her with a clear glass filled with water in one hand, and it reminded her eerily of just the other day when Neji had brought her the glass of water, and the bathroom, and the alarm, and the _fear_ that was so intense it ached inside of her, and the monsters behind her, and the running, and the stabbing ice-cold, and the numb feeling of slowly forgetting how to move your limbs-

"Hello? Is something wrong?"

Tenten's eyes snapped back into focus to rest on the apprehensive look on the man's face. "No, I was just thinking."

"About what?"

The question surprised her, though it was nothing magnificent. But all the same, something about his voice and his eyes spoke sincerity, like he really cared about hearing what was on her mind. It made him seem less like a stranger, though she was positive that she had never met him before and he had no reason for being so kind.

"Nothing…" She looked down to the floor, at his scuffed black shoes and away from his oddly magnetic eyes. She felt that if she stared into them for too long, they would be able to figure out what she did not want to vocalize.

He surprised her (again) by countering in a dubious, though not reprimanding, voice, "I doubt that that's what you were thinking about, you looked pretty lost in your own head."

Tenten raised her brown eyes back to his face and tried to understand what she saw there. He was smiling in a way the seemed to be inviting her to counter his claim, like he actually wanted her to talk to him.

_Why would he care?_

He offered her the glass of water, which she took gratefully, and then stretched out his other hand and opened his palm. There were two white pills resting there. Tenten looked at them questioningly.

"You still have a fever."

"…I do?"

He nodded. "Yeah, and I'm guessing that your muscles are probably pretty sore still."

"Still?"

His smile transformed into a sorrowful grimace. "You were having really bad muscle spasms for a while, and we were pretty sure your fever wouldn't die down. The first four days were sheer torture; we had to keep you as still as possible and try to keep your temperature from rising anymore, or else you would have burned out, literally."

It was almost as if he was speaking another language; none of his words were making any sense. Four days? Burning out? "What…do you mean?" Tenten asked slowly.

The man ran a hand through his hair before sitting down on Tenten's left. The mattress lowered a bit with his added weight, and Tenten looked over at him with a more analyzing eye. He couldn't possibly be any older than her; he gave off an air of liveliness and some unexplainable wisdom at the same time, like he had seen much more than she ever had. There was something rugged about the way his hair fell in an uneven curtain over his forehead and the strange tattoos accented his high cheek bones.

"First take the pills, and then I'll tell you more about your…stay here."

"What are they for?"

"They're painkillers."

Uncertainty swirled in Tenten's gut, but before she could voice her hesitation, he grabbed her left hand and uncurled her fingers gently. He dropped one of the capsules into her open hand and gave her a small grin.

"Here, I'll take this one just to show you that they're perfectly normal, un-poisoned pain medication."

He popped the pill into his mouth and swallowed it dry, his Adam's apple bobbing as he threw his head back to help the pill slide down easier. "See? Everything's good," he said cheerfully.

Reassured, Tenten slipped the pill into her mouth and took a sip of water, grimacing as she felt the blunt edges of the pill slip down her throat. She exhaled sharply once the uncomfortable feeling was gone.

"I hate swallowing pills," she admitted glumly.

"Yeah, it's not my favorite thing to do either," the man agreed. "I'm Kiba, by the way."

"Hm? Oh, I'm Tenten."

"Tenten…" Kiba seemed to mull it over for a second, and then smiled. "That's a nice name. A whole lot better than 'the girl from the river.'"

A smile slipped onto Tenten's face, and it took her a moment to realize it. It felt so strange…out of place. "That's what you called me?" she asked in a quiet voice.

"There weren't that many options," Kiba said with a shrug, but then grew more somber. "So, do you want the detailed, explicit story, or the vague, quick one?"

Tenten thought about it briefly, and ultimately said, "I'd rather the quick one. I don't think I really want to hear all the details…"

Kiba nodded. "Okay, well, I guess I'll start by saying that this is your sixth day here."

"Sixth…wow. I must've been pretty messed up."

"Yeah, you were. No offense or anything," he added, "but your body systems were shutting down pretty fast when Sakura found you at the bank of the river. Your fingers were purple and you were barely breathing, and then you passed out on us and we had to run you all the way back here."

"How far?" Tenten asked simply.

"Fifteen minutes, and I was sprinting as fast as I could the whole way."

Fifteen minutes. Longer than a mile.

"And then we didn't know what exactly was wrong with you. We guessed that you had almost drowned, but there was no more water in your lungs. And then there was the fact that you were extremely cold, but then a fever countered that not soon after we arrived here. On the second day your muscles started spasming like crazy even though you weren't even conscious. It was pretty freaky."

Tenten's hands were clenched into the black fabric of the pants she was wearing, which she dimly noted were not her own (and neither was the light pink shirt she was wearing). She unbent and re-bent her leg slowly and felt the ache the movement caused.

"What happened to me?" she whispered to herself, knowing that the answer wouldn't come. All she had was a guess, a gut feeling, but nothing concrete.

"I was hoping that _you_ could tell _me_."

She looked into Kiba's eyes and contemplated telling him the truth. About sorcery and being locked in a cell and asked to become part of some monstrous army. "I don't really remember," she lied, hoping that he face looked regretful enough that he would believe her. "I mean, I know I must have fallen in the river somehow, but I just don't know…"

He half-smiled and put his hands on top of hers. "Don't worry about it right now. It's just a good thing that you didn't drift any farther downstream, and that we found you when we did, and that you recovered so amazingly."

Tenten relaxed her fingers and Kiba lifted his hands away once she did. She was thankful for how he tried to keep her calm, it kept her from thinking about all the negatives that tried to make themselves predominant in her mind.

A question came to her mind suddenly. "Where are we?"

"We are in the medical ward in a rundown storage house."

Tenten furrowed her eyebrows. "A storage house?"

"Well, kinda. It's more like a storage house turned into a home, _my _home."

"You live here?"

"With Sakura."

"Is she your wife?"

Kiba let out a booming laugh. "Not even close. We're just old friends with nowhere else to stay."

"And you run a hospital?" Tenten asked, somewhat dubiously.

"Of sorts. Sakura went to medical school until she was twenty and ran out of money, and her dream of becoming a doctor just never died. We treat people like you here."

"And what are people like me?"

He didn't answer for a while; Tenten assumed he was thinking. Finally, "It's hard to explain. You can just tell; you get this feeling when you see them. Like you, left for dead on that riverbank, never been reported missing by anyone. It was pretty obvious that whatever happened to you, it wasn't normal."

Tenten felt a nervous chill in her veins; he was too aware, and she wasn't sure it was a good thing. What if he was another bad guy? What if he was another Neji? She felt his eyes searching her face for something, and couldn't bring herself to look back. She was beginning to dread telling him her name.

"I'm sorry," he said suddenly, and he sounded ashamed. "I shouldn't have brought that up again, I can tell it bothers you a lot."

Tenten peeked up through her eyelashes to see him averting his eyes; they were aimed guiltily at the door.

"It's okay…" she said, knowing that they were only words to fill the silence. She wasn't sure if anything was really, truly okay anymore.

"Next time, just punch me before I say too much," Kiba said, and looked at her again. His grin was apologetic, and once again Tenten felt comforted because he was just too nice and unthreatening and conversational, and she couldn't explain it if she had to, but she felt safe.

"Okay."

He looked relieved, but not for long. A crashing came from somewhere outside the room and down the hall, followed by a quick drumming sound that was rapidly growing closer.

"What the hell?" Kiba muttered, standing slowly and taking a few steps towards the door. Before he had even made it halfway across the room, the door flew open with a bang that left Tenten's heart in a temporary state of petrified shock. Standing in the doorway was a young woman with round emerald eyes and a flushed face framed with vibrant locks of pink that were in disarray.

"Kiba, Karin found someone. We need you, _now_."

Her wild eyes flickered to meet Tenten's, and shock registered on her features immediately. "How long…" she began in awe, but quickly killed that train of thought. "Kiba, _now_!" she yelled in near hysterics before throwing herself back down the hallway without a backwards glance.

Kiba hesitated for a fraction of a second, uttered a quick "excuse me," and was gone, taking the invisible cloud of peace and serenity with him.

Tenten's mind was left reeling uselessly; she could feel the gears churning and attempting to produce answers but amounting to nothing. She wasn't sure why she stood up and walked over to the door, gritting her teeth as she fought a winning battle against a limp, because though she knew where she was headed, she didn't know what she would do once she got there.

But she followed the sounds of heavy footfalls and jumbled voices down the hall and through another, all the while wondering if her annoyingly slow pace would ever get her to the source of the commotion in time.

She heard an unfamiliar woman's voice mutter something hastily from not too far away; there couldn't be many corners left to turn.

"Did anyone see you?" It was Kiba's voice, filled with fright and a hint of anger.

"No, Kiba, it's pitch dark outside! Calm down, you're not helping at all!" The stranger-girl again, exasperated and…shaken? There was a barely evident manic edge to her voice; something was scaring her, making her uncomfortable.

"Okay, I just had to make sure! Hurry, get him to the back room. Sakura, help her carry him."

Tenten flattened herself against the wall as the hurried footsteps grew nearer, and her heart thumped against her ribcage erratically when the three figures rounded the corner – four counting the lifeless-looking one being carried by two women. One was the pink-haired girl, Sakura.

If anyone noticed her, they did not show it as they ran past Tenten and around another corner, Kiba in the lead. Once the sound of a door slamming faded into silence, Tenten inhaled a shaky breath.

The second girl, the one that had sounded frightened, had been covered in blood. It had seeped over the majority of the front of her light blue shirt and dripped down her arms in red rivulets. And her face…She had looked terrified. Because of the blood or something else, Tenten didn't know. But in the split second Tenten had seen her, the girl's face had been as pale as a sheet and her glasses-framed eyes had been wide in shock, flickering once to the still figure dangling between her and Sakura.

Tenten shut her eyes tight, hoping that she could lock out the image of the man's face. She didn't want to see it anymore, didn't want to recognize it. She didn't want to have to keep seeing the deep, sticky crimson pooling over the front of his white shirt near his abdomen.

"It's someone else, it's someone else," she repeated in a strangled voice. Maybe if she said it enough times, her brain would decide to believe her.

"It's not…It's not…No…" Her knees trembled and gave way, and her back slid against the wall as she fell into a sitting position on the ground. There was a trail of red droplets marking the hallway floor, like a twisted version of the trail of breadcrumbs she had read about in a fairytale book when she was little. She threw her head back against the wall, a little too hard because a stab of pain flared up behind her temples and she gasped at the throbbing.

"Just make it stop."

* * *

**A/N:** That's right. Karin. Don't hate.


	9. Reuniting

**A/N:** Oh. My. God. Editing this story took FOR EVER. Chaps 1-3 were pretty much torn apart, and then rebuilt piece by piece. I took out scenes, added scenes, fixed a buttload of grammar, and then i wanted to do nothing but eat chocolate to recover from the shock of reading (and knowing that i had once written) something so terrible. I fixed up to chap 7, since 7 and 8 didn't have much wrong in terms of grammar and stuff. Basically, Neji and Tenten's initial meeting in chap 1 is the same, but then i changed some stuff up until the 4th chap. I'm guessing some of you won't go back to reread it, so i'll summarize it here.

Tenten doesn't almost break Neji's nose. They meet for the second time as she's returning home after grocery shopping. It's dusk, and she runs into Neji on the stairs. He asks her questions, and she has the feeling that there's something he knows about her, but she's not sure what. Basically, he weirds her out. The next chap, she's walking around town reminiscing about random stuff, and spots Neji and some random girl (ack, a Neji OC fangirl). He's annoyed by the "waspish girl," and it's only when the annoying girl says Neji's name that Tenten finally learns his name. Neji notices Tenten, Tenten passes without a word, and the OC asks if Neji knows Tenten. Then the same stuff happens: the attack, the various forest scenes, etc. That was a very **very** breif outline of the changes. And i probably forgot some stuff.

On to this chap. First of all, i know there are disagreements about the color of Karin's hair. According to my beloved wikipedia, it's red. But i've always pictured it as black, so that's how it is in this story. I just don't see the red...

Also, thanks to everyone who has been waiting as i fixed up the beginning of this story/thought of a new name/added chapter titles and finally got to this chap. And thank you for reviewing! I hope you all had a great Christmas/a happy holiday, and a wonderful new year's! Phew, i think that's all i wanted to say. Please forgive the insanely long author's note...

* * *

**Let the Last Tear Fall**

_9. Reuniting_

"You have really nice hair, you know?"

Tenten gave her reflection a small, embarrassed grin. Over her shoulder, the woman named Karin was brushing a comb through her hair in long, even strokes, gently getting rid of tangles.

Tenten shrugged. "I guess."

Karin clicked her tongue. "Don't you 'I guess' me. You know it is. I mean, look at it! Naturally wavy, beautiful color." She shook her head and grabbed a lock of her raven-colored hair – a strand from the left side, which was straight, while the right side of her head sported a choppier style – and twirled it around her finger, eyeing it with a small frown.

"Your hair's pretty too," Tenten offered to the Karin reflected in the mirror truthfully. It was a bit strange, the style, but it wasn't at all ugly.

Karin let the lock fall from her fingers as she resumed her brushing. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. It's not like I ever have the time to _do_ anything with it. One of these days…a haircut would be really nice."

Tenten hummed a polite agreement, and studied herself in the mirror. Her cheeks were slightly flushed; she still had a slight fever. But the dark circles under her eyes were vanishing, and in her eyes' brown depths she could see an inner strength returning faintly. She was healing, from everything. She hoped. They told her she was getting better – Kiba and Sakura and Karin – and she believed them with as much faith as she could.

But she had also been told by someone else that she may die, and that possibility always whispered in her ear, though it had become quieter recently.

Karin was the one who had found her on the ground three nights ago, slumped against the wall with her head in her hands. The girl had pulled Tenten to her feet, and Tenten had seen the same fear reflected in the taller girl's eyes that she herself felt turning in her stomach.

"I'm Karin," the girl had said, and then she had grabbed Tenten's hand. There was blood on her fingers, but her grip was strong, so Tenten let herself be led away. "Let's get you out of this place," Karin said, referring to the blood-dotted floor. Tenten heard the shaky edge in her voice, but she also heard the determination.

.

.

.

_Karin led her into another room, filled with only two old armchairs. The raven-haired girl dragged one over so that it was facing the other, and then she motioned for Tenten to sit down. Tenten did as she was told, and then Karin sat in front of her. _

"_What's your name?" the girl asked, bluntly but not harshly._

"_Tenten."_

"_Tenten…" she said quietly, seeming to be mulling over the name, but Tenten noticed that the far-away look in her eyes still had a tinge of fear in it. She was still thinking about the man. As was Tenten. _

_Why _him_?_

"_I'm sorry you had to see that," Karin said abruptly, focus snapping back to the present. She looked down at her palms. "It really is…a terrible thing to see."_

_Tenten wasn't sure what to say, so she opted to stay silent. Her eyes traveled to the floor; the boards were dusty. _

"_Are you okay?"_

_Tenten's head snapped up. "What?"_

"_I mean, after seeing that. It was probably a shock to you, just waking up and everything."_

"_I'm fine," Tenten lied. She felt numb, like time was passing sluggishly, too slow for her brain to absorb what was going on. Then again, numb was probably better than sharp and painful and confusing. _

_Karin smiled tiredly and rubbed a hand over one arm. The blood was drying; it smelled coppery. She noticed Tenten's gaze and looked at her arms, and then her shirt, stained the darkest shade of crimson. "I hate blood," she muttered. Her hand hovered over the damp fabric of her shirt, almost as if she was contemplating whether wiping a hand over it would magically clean it._

"_Why do you work here, then?" Tenten asked._

_Karin looked up. "There's usually not this much blood." Her eyes looked haunted, and her shoulders were slumped. She pinched the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut. "There's usually not this much blood…" she repeated, voice cracking. "But…there was so much. All over him. Everywhere…"_

"_Is… is he going to be okay?" Tenten asked. She didn't know what answer she was hoping for. _

_Karin shook her head. "I don't know. He lost so much blood. When I found him, by the river, he was in a puddle of it. The whole time I was carrying him back, I could barely see where I was going. I dropped my flashlight when I saw him, and it shattered against a rock. It was so dark. But the entire time I could feel his blood dripping down my back and my arms." She buried her face in her hand. "I don't feel good."_

_Tenten pressed her lips together, at a loss. Tentatively, she hooked a hand through one of Karin's – the one lying limp on the armrest – and gave it a gentle squeeze. Karin didn't pull her hand back, and suddenly Tenten found herself the one doing the comforting._

.

.

.

The whole encounter had been a strange one, but not something that she wanted to forget particularly. She supposed it had been the first step in the loose friendship the two women had built. Karin was nice – loud, usually, with a very determined attitude, but kind all the same. She was sturdy, or had been ever since that night.

She kept Tenten company when Kiba and Sakura were working. Karin wasn't especially skilled at doctoring, like the other two were, but she had moved in with them a while ago because they were her friends. And she had nowhere else to go. They entrusted her with small tasks, and she was happy to help, for the most part.

"Ouch!" Tenten gasped suddenly as the comb snagged into a particularly nasty tangle. She reached for the sore spot on her head, but Karin batter her hand away, a contemplative frown on her face.

"Okay, so maybe your hair's not _perfect_. It does have a lot of tangles."

Tenten pursed her lips. "I didn't ask you to be my personal hairstylist," she muttered, wincing as Karin fought with the not.

"Yeah, yeah," Karin waved her off dismissively. "I have nothing better to do. And just a question: whose shampoo did you use?"

"Kiba let me borrow his when he showed me where the shower was. It's not like I had any of my own," Tenten answered a bit defensively.

Karin wrinkled her nose. "No wonder you smell like a guy."

Tenten didn't supply an answer, and sat in silence until Karin announced, "All done! Perfectly tangle-free. I'll take my money now."

Tenten rolled her eyes. "Do you have a hair tie?"

"What, why? Just leave it down."

"But…it'll get in the way."

"Of what?" Karin asked. But she raised her hands at Tenten's narrow-eyed stare. "Okay, okay, just hold your horses."

Tenten subconsciously ran a hand through her hair as she waited for Karin to find an elastic. The raven-haired girl was digging through drawers noisily. "Oops, wrong one," she said lightly after a minute, and Tenten looked over.

"What's that for?" she asked slowly. Karin had opened a drawer that held a small silver gun. She shut it and opened another one.

"Protection. Against the occasional unwelcome guest to this town. We get a Drone every now and then. _Their_ blood doesn't bother me as much as human blood. It's a good workout, taking them down."

"Drones come around here?" Tenten asked. "But why?"

Karin shrugged, and stuck her hand into a drawer filled with various hair brushes and combs. "I dunno. But when they come – which really isn't that often – it's at night, and most of the villagers are asleep. Kiba's good at tracking them, and I'm good at getting rid of them."

Tracking them? Tenten wondered what they tracked them with, but asked a different question instead. "You can kill them with a small gun like that?"

At this, Karin grinned and looked at Tenten with gleaming eyes. "That's just a backup," she said, tapping on the drawer that held the small gun. "My real baby's somewhere much safer. Oh, got one!" she exclaimed, retracting her hand, which now held a beige hair tie.

Tenten wasn't sure she wanted to see Karin's _baby_, or know anything more about it, for that matter. She accepted the hair tie and pulled her hair into a ponytail. But the talk of Drones brought her thoughts to something else.

"Um, that guy…" she started tentatively. "You know, that you found…?"

Karin stood and furrowed her eyebrows. "Yeah?" she asked. She twirled a finger into some of her straight hair. She seemed to do that absently when she thought, Tenten noticed.

"Well, I was wondering if I could talk to him maybe?" Tenten said, and it came out more of a timid question.

Karin looked at her for a moment, and then asked, "Do you know him?"

Tenten glanced away, and then back. "No, not really." It didn't sound at all convincing.

It looked as if Karin was going to ask another question, maybe call Tenten out on her lie, but in the end she let go of her hair and headed toward the door. "Alright, come on, let's see if he's awake," she beckoned, heading down the hall. Tenten smiled a silent thanks and followed.

* * *

Her smile didn't last long, however.

Why did she want to see him? Why did she want to speak with him? A large part of her didn't want to do those very things, but still she felt as if she had to. For the past three days her thoughts had strayed to him, and she felt odd knowing that he was in the same building as her.

He had condemned her. And then he had saved her. She wasn't sure what to think of him. But she felt that she owed him her thanks, at least.

She followed Karin down the hall in a silence that was broken by the rhythm of their footsteps. Her heart began to speed up, and she thought of telling Karin that she had changed her mind. But she couldn't. She didn't quite understand it, but she knew that she had to see him.

Karin stopped in front of a plain white door, and glanced at Tenten before turning the doorknob and poking her head inside. Tenten hovered behind her, biting her lip. She was beginning to regret asking for this. But Karin turned back to her and nodded, holding the door open for her, so all Tenten could do was step inside.

"Thanks," she mumbled under her breath, and Karin nodded again and left, and Tenten closed the door behind her.

The room was white and mostly bare, just as she remembered hers to be when she first woke up those three longs days ago. There was a bed against the far wall, and sitting up in that bed, his back propped against the headboard, was someone she knew all too well, though not at all.

The bleached white blanket pooled over his waist, and whatever gruesome injury he sported on his stomach was hidden under the equally-blinding white shirt he was wearing, no doubt covering a plethora of bandages underneath. His skin was pale, his eyes icy, and his hair shockingly dark amid the pallor all around.

Neji looked at her, pale eyes wide in surprise. She stared back, not knowing what so say, and as the dense silence progressed, Neji finally let his face fall into an expression that betrayed the slightest bit of exasperated amusement. He rubbed a hand over his eyes and shook his head.

"Fate is a funny thing," he breathed.

Tenten wasn't sure who he was talking to. It scared her how familiar his voice was to her. She still had a hand on the doorknob, and when she let it go it turned back into place with a _click_. She took a breath.

"I'm not quite sure why I came to talk to you…" she began, telling a partial-lie.

Neji peered up at her. "I didn't know you were here."

"Oh. Um…" It was an odd thing to say, so she didn't know how to respond.

"I couldn't sense you anymore. Or, I _can't_, I guess I should say."

He was speaking in that strange, hard-to-understand way of his. Tenten felt the similar, wearying sensation of dozens of questions popping into her head. Whenever he spoke, much of what he said felt to Tenten like a riddle she was supposed to solve. But she never knew where to _start_.

_What do you mean, 'I couldn't – can't – sense you anymore?' How did you get here? What happened to you? _Why_ here, of all places?_

"Why did you help me?"

It wasn't what she had meant to say. She had intended to veer away from questions, because they always made things more complicated. But the questions would never veer away from her.

Neji looked at her with a stoic expression, and she didn't know what to make of it. Did he not want to discuss it? Did he not understand her question? She doubted the last one.

She took a step forward; he didn't blink. "Thank you, for doing it," she said. "Really, thank you so much for letting me out of there. But…" She felt her forehead wrinkle and her eyebrows furrow at the painful memories she saw all too vividly. "But…why? Why did you let me go? Or…why did you keep me in there for so long if you were just going to let me go in the end?"

Her voice was getting thick with emotion. More questions were springing forth, too many. Her brain was overloading, she felt herself crashing. She wanted to know so much, _needed_ to know so much, that she couldn't even keep track of all the different thoughts in her head. They were jumbled together in disarray, a confusing mess of fears and hopes and maybe-s and maybe not-s.

"What was the point of it all? You said I had no choice, and that I couldn't disagree to what you wanted, but then you helped me do that very thing. Why _me_, and not anyone else? And then what about you?" she asked, motioning towards him with a jerky flick of the wrist. "What happened to you? Why are you here?"

His gaze did not falter, his blank eyes did not leave hers, but he offered no answers. His mouth remained shut, as if glued that way. It was almost as if he wasn't hearing anything she said.

Tenten's frown quivered. She needed answers. She needed to hear him speak, just to prove that he was really there and really listening and that she wasn't just talking to her self. But all he did was look at her. She curled her hands into fists.

"Neji, say something!" she yelled. "Tell me something! Anything! I deserve answers from you! This is all your fault! This is _all your fault!_"

For a moment he looked taken aback by her outburst; his eyes widened an infinitesimal bit, and his eyebrows twitched up, but the mask of stony impassiveness soon returned to his features.

"Or are you just not going to talk?" Tenten asked, tone suddenly becoming very tired.

He sighed. She felt herself tensing, anticipating. "I expected questions like those," he finally said. "You asked so many. Which one do you want me to answer first?"

A strangled laugh choked through her windpipe. "All of them would be nice."

"I can't –"

"I know," she said, cutting him off. "I know, I know." She suddenly noticed that somewhere along the line she had crossed the rest of the room to the foot of the bed, and was now gripping the metal handle there with both hands.

She was looking down at him now, just barely. It was strange; she felt little power noticing this. And he still stared back at her, waiting, silent.

"Why did you do it?" she asked. The last word came out as little more than a squeaky exhale of air.

"I'm not sure."

"No, you know," she responded, voice rising again. Her eyes narrowed, and she leaned a bit further over the metal bar. "There has to be a reason. Don't lie to me anymore."

"It's complicated."

"I don't care! You're just making it even more complicated! You asked for a question; that was it. I want my answer."

He closed his mouth once again, and matched her angry glare with a similar one. But his was more tired, more reluctant.

"Please," Tenten urged, not expecting it to do much.

Neji finally let his gaze slip from her face, and as it went Tenten knew that she wouldn't be getting anything. Her hopes came crashing down. She briefly wondered why she still had any.

As he stared over her shoulder at the far wall, he said, "I'd rather not answer that one."

She laughed, or maybe it was a dry sob, and shook her head. "Okay." She took a few steps back. "Okay," she repeated, not feeling okay at all. She regretted ever entering the room, because now she would be leaving even more lost than before.

Her answers were right there, right in front of her! But he wouldn't give her the ones she wanted the most. She _knew_ he could explain it all, everything and more.

_Why won't he?_

She reached back for the doorknob, and her hand fumbled over the door for a moment before coming across the cold, steel protrusion. "Well, thank you Neji," she said in a flat voice. His eyes snapped to her form again as she opened the door.

_Why won't you tell me anything?_

"The story is too long," he uttered, maybe realizing what it was she was asking him with her eyes.

"Hm."

_Of course._

Even as she closed the door, she knew she would be talking to him again soon. She needed him. She just wished she didn't.

* * *

**A/N:** I'm hoping the end of this made sense, since i wrote it yesterday, after getting about 4 hours of sleep. And usually when i'm sleep deprived, i say/write very incoherent things... Reviews are appreciated!


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